Harry Potter 1. 12 Grimmauld Place

Harry Potter and the Twist in Time

** 12 Grimmauld Place**

CRASH! There, for the second time, a booming crash from the basement. Fifteen year old Harry Potter's blood turned to ice in his veins.

When the crash had come the first time at 12 Grimmauld Place, headquarters to the Order of the Phoenix, Harry's thoughts flew immediately to Lord Voldemort.

The most powerful Dark wizard of all time, once thought destroyed the night he'd murdered Harry's parents, had returned. Three months ago, he had been restored in a graveyard in Little Hangleton, accompanied by his servants, the Death Eaters. And Harry had been dreading an attack ever since.

Only no one believed him. The wizarding world thought him crazy; an attention seeking brat out for a bit of fame. And those who did believe him seemed to think he was unworthy of attention, if the lack of communication was any indication. He'd been ignored completely, left with his negligent (and that was putting it nicely) aunt and uncle until he'd been attacked by Dementors in Little Whinging. Only then, had he been deemed worthy of attention, and been given any information whatsoever.

Lately, he'd found his old recurring nightmare had returned, worse than ever. There was still the flash of deadly, blinding, green light, as well as the cackle of cold laughter. Except now, it was accompanied by images of Cedric Diggory's dead, empty eyes. Even though he had his godfather Sirius Black, the closest he'd ever come to a parent, and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, not to mention the entire Order popping in and out each day, he felt so alone.

The first deafening crash had come in the middle of supper. The cheerful murmur of chat at the table had died out immediately. The very air had seemed frozen, then came the scream. A scream from the basement. It couldn't have been anyone in the Order; they were all in the dining room, except for ex-con Mundungus Fletcher.

_He couldn't have,_ thought Harry thinking the shady criminal had betrayed them. But then, as if on cue, a very pale Mundungus materialized in front of them out of thin air. Every single eye in the room paid rapt attention as he spoke.

"P-p-people," he stammered out, "I-In the basement. I-I don't know-"he stuttered before fainting, almost comically, at their feet.

Everyone was on their feet faster than a gunshot. Lupin, Tonks, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, along with the older Weasleys vanished on the spot. Harry brandished his wand and made a mad dash for the stairs. But he was met by an obstacle.

"No," stated Sirius Black, "You are _not_ going, it's far too dangerous," he said firmly.

"But I want to help!" protested Harry, vibrant green eyes flashing, "Like you told Mrs. Weasley, I'm _not_ a child!"

"Yes, but you're not an adult either! Listen Harry, go upstairs to the safe room with Ron and Hermione, and wait there. Mad-Eye should be up there soon, along with an emergency squadron_. Do not go down there _for _anything. _Do you hear me?" his voice was stern, but had a distinct undertone of excitement. Being a wanted man wrongly accused of murder, he was forced to remain in Grimmauld Place at all times and desperately missed the thrill of danger.

Harry was sorely tempted to disregard his godfather's command but stopped himself seeing the adamant look in his eyes. He blazed up the stairs, one question dominating his mind, _did this have anything to do with the weapon Voldemort was after? _

Harry was in a rage as he thrust open the door to the safe-room holding his two best aware that it probably wasn't wise, he loudly slammed the door so hard, the frame rattled with the force of his anger.

Ron and Hermione glanced at him nervously, like he was a bomb that would violently explode if they set him off.

"There you are, Harry, we were getting really worried," breathed Hermione. Harry said nothing, only glared at the door as if it had committed some heinous crime. The tension in the room could have been cut with a knife.

"Hey," started Ron, "come off it mate, we don't even know if it has anything to do with You-Know-Who. They'll probably be fine." But Harry could tell that Ron didn't believe a word he was saying if the look in his eyes was any indication.

"You don't know that," spat Harry coldly, "You_ can't_ know that." He felt his heart pounding, and everywhere he looked he saw visions of scarlet eyes with slits for pupils; his mind echoed with the echoes of his mother's final screams.

This was the final straw. Harry lunged for the doorknob before his brain had fully comprehended what he was doing.

"Harry! No! You could get yourself_ killed_!" shrieked Hermione, and both she and Ron reached out as if to stop him. He simply shoved them both off, and sped down the hallway.

_Not again,_ he chorused in his head, _this is __**not **__happening again._ Last time, when Cedric died, there had been nothing he could do. This time, he wasn't just going to stand around, like a little kid; like _Dumbledore_ wanted him to. Dumbledore, who seemed to think Harry couldn't be trusted, who had just left him in in the dark. Well, here's proving _him_ wrong, thought Harry.

He was jolted out of these thoughts when he came to a halt outside the dust-coated basement door. He couldn't hear a sound, and his heart skipped a beat as he envisioned dead bodies pn the ground. But he quickly sighed with relief when he heard Sirius's unsteady voice.

"Who are you, and why are you here?" Harry heard him say to an unknown person. Harry ached to burst open the door, but for some reason, he hesitated and felt heshould hold back.

"S-Sirius?" he heard an alarmed voice ask, a woman's by the sound of it. "Tonks?...Lupin? What are you…?" she trailed off sounding astonished, "Kids, are you alright?" she said in breathless rush. Harry didn't recognize the voice but judged that from the lack of hysterical screaming, that Voldemort was not present.

"Fine, Mum" this new, also unrecognizable, voice was male, and younger than the first, more like a kid's.

"W-what's going on? Where are we?" trembled a small voice that seemed like that of a young girl.

"S'okay Lily, just calm down," soothed yet another unfamiliar voice, male again_, a teenager's_? Harry wondered. Despite the fact he was supposed to be consoling someone else, there was a quaver that betrayed that this stranger felt uncertain as well.

Then a new voice joined the conversation, a man's this time; Harry's heart leapt at the sound. He still didn't recognize it, but unless he was mistaken, it sounded a bit like…his father? He thought to himself to let go of false hope, but still pressed his ear closer to the door. By this point, he seriously questioned why he didn't go and look, but he had a strange feeling he shouldn't, not yet anyway.

"Oh my god," the strange man muttered, "What is _happening_? Is this someone's sick of idea of a _joke_? I am warning you, _I am an Auror_. No…t-this_ has_ to be a trick, because there is no way you can be alive," He sounded like he was in severe denial of something.

_An auror_, Harry mused, definitely wizards then, but who were they, and why were they at Grimmauld place?

"You are no Auror I recognize," he heard Kingsley Shacklebolt say,"so who, then, are you? And are you in league with the Dark Lord?" Harry was surprised to hear a hint of uncertainty in Kingsley's normally steady voice.

"Kingsley!" said the nameless man, "I don't suppose you… no, 'course you don't… A-alright well, I'm still not sure what's going on, or how any of this is _possible_, but I can assure you I'm _not_ in league with Voldemort. It's quite the opposite, really…" He trailed off and let out a humorless sort of chuckle.

To Harry, it seemed like this man was on the verge of hysterics; but Harry had the feeling this stranger was not the sort who scared easily. He knew this man couldn't have been an Auror if Kingsley didn't know who he was, so why then, did he have an absolute certainty he was telling the truth?

Harry couldn't take it any longer, he flung open the door and gasped at the sight before him. Looking straight through the pack of Order members, he saw five people.

* * *

The first two were adults, and for one, wild, fleeting moment, he thought they were his parents. The man, the supposed Auror, had very untidy black hair, and glasses; the woman had fiery red hair. However a second glance revealed, no, they were not his parents.

Harry shook his head and turned his attention to the children. The eldest looking one, looked to be about thirteen, and had the wild black hair Harry had inherited from his dad; his eyes were a familiar chocolate brown._ Ginny's_ he realized, _just like Ginny's._

The girl, who looked to be around nine, had flaming red locks that looked very familiar to anyone who knew the Weasleys. Harry's eyes widened as he saw that this girl was the spitting image of a younger Ginny Weasley.

Now, the _other_ boy caught Harry's eye especially. Why?

Because he looked exactly like Harry, younger, (possibly around eleven?), but it was still like looking into a mirror. The messy hair, the bright green eyes that had once been Lily Evan's, the same slight build he'd had at eleven, but… Harry's eyes shot to the boy's forehead; there was no scar there.

Utterly lost, but with an inkling of an idea that sounded completely mental, Harry turned back to the adults. "What-? How-?" his head was spinning and he could barely get a word out. "_**Who are you?"**_ he finally let out in a strangled voice.

He glanced around at the Order with wide eyes, and looked back at the mysterious adults. The woman with fiery red hair strongly resembled a younger Mrs. Weasley. The man though...

This stranger had stick-up hair, thick glasses, vibrant green almond-shaped eyes currently wide with total disbelief, and, right there on his forehead, faint but unmistakable_, a scar shaped just like a bolt of lightning_.

Fifteen year old Harry Potter staggered back in shock and nearly collapsed as the confused man answered his question.

The no longer anonymous man took a shaky breath, glanced around the room and uttered three words, "I'm Harry Potter."

* * *

**A/N: Hello, if you have reached the bottom of this chapter, thanks for reading! I'm not entirely sure where this is going... so if you have any suggestions, you can leave them in the reviews, or just leave a review, I'm satisfied with that too! see the box down there? Can you please type some words in it and press submit, PLEASE?! **


	2. Familiar Faces

Harry Potter and the Twist in Time

**Familiar faces**

The silence that followed this revelation spoke volumes as everyone just stared, stunned. Fifteen year old Harry Potter simply gaped at the five, similarly confused, strangers. Or… maybe they _weren't_ strangers.

The man, the man with the stick-up hair that so was like Harry's, and the startling green eyes that had exclusively been his ever since his mother's death… and the scar. The lightning bolt scar that had been paining Harry all summer, all his life, really; its twin stood out on the man's forehead and Harry's eyes gravitated to it the way most people gawked at his.

This man, accompanied by a red-haired woman and three children, had just said that_ he_ was Harry Potter, and with such conviction that Harry almost believed it. They certainly _looked_ similar enough, but that was _impossible. Wasn't it? _Harry's head was spinning, and he could feel the world falling around him, or perhaps_ he_ was the one falling, he really didn't know.

Standing in that room was very disorienting, in front of Harry was a man who looked quite a lot like he might in twenty years, beside _him_ was a boy who looked almost exactly like he had about four years ago. It was almost like a fun-house mirror at a carnival, except these weren't just images; they were real flesh and blood.

Harry cast around wildly for an explanation. _Maybe I'm dreaming, _he thought_ or maybe there's some dark magic going on, or maybe… _

Harry's mind flashed back to his third year when he'd traveled back in time with Hermione to rescue his godfather Sirius from a hoard of soul-sucking Dementors. Could that be what was happening here? But you needed a time-turner for that, and there wasn't a single hourglass in sight. Even then, how far back could a time-turner travel? _Twenty Years?_

"What? No, y-you _can't_ be, that's impossible, _right?"_ Harry's eyes searched the faces of the Order members for an answer, but all he could find was the same expression of blatant confusion everywhere.

Hesitantly, he glanced at the possible time-travelers and pinched himself, hard, it hurt and Harry let go of the theory that it was simply a dream.

The youngest child, a nine year old looking Ginny Weasley doppelganger, who he recalled had earlier been called Lily by one of the boys, probably her brothers, piped up, "Mum, what's happening? Where are we?" she said in a panicked voice.

The question was directed towards the woman, presumably her mother. Problem was, _she_ was currently occupied gaping at several Order members with tears in her eyes.

They were all helped to several more seconds of tense, awkward silence until Kingsley stepped forward wielding his wand.

"You claim to be Harry Potter, I'd like some proof to support your claim please," he said in a voice that was surprisingly calm given the circumstances.

"Of course Mini- er, Kingsley," the man nodded and seemed to fumble around for something, a wand. _Harry's wand._

It was quite clearly the exact double of the wand currently clutched in Harry's right hand. Holly and Phoenix feather, 11 inches, the very same he'd bought in Ollivander's at age eleven. Harry's eyes somehow found the ability to widen to the point where they looked about ready to pop out of his head.

"Expecto Patronum!" the man muttered with a brief glimpse in Lupin's direction. A bright white shape, a patronus, shot out the end and pranced around the room a bit before dissipating into silvery mist. It was a stag.

There was no denying it any longer; this man was indeed Harry James Potter. _But…how? _thought a shocked Harry.

"How?" asked Lupin incredulously, and Harry could see that same question etched onto every other face in sight.

"Well, let's see, er" said in the man, er,_ Older Harry, "_We were at the Ministry... and-wait" he paused and gasped, "What- what year is it?"

"1995," answered Kingsley, "Where..." he started hesitatingly, "_When are you from?" Kingsley had apparently reached the same time-traveling conclusion as himself._

"2017," Future Harry said, the look on his face full of intense and conflicted emotions, "1995," he muttered under his breath, "fifth year, back when they thought I was a lunatic…right before the Ministry and…" he trailed off with a discreet glance at Sirius that lasted barely a second, but was still enough to make his eyes begin to pool up.

_Whoa,_ thought Present Harry, _twenty-two years?_ _Did this mean Voldemort wasn't going to kill him? Was he_ _going to kill Voldemort? Was Dumbledore? And why did people keep looking at Sirius like… like he was a __ghost__ or something? Heck, how was any of this even possible in the first place?!_

He was shaken from this torrent of questions when the door was flung open, and a very flustered looking Ron and Hermione stumbled in. The five strangers who were not exactly strangers anymore leapt back in surprise.

"Er… Dad?" said the older, messy-haired boy standing beside Harry's older self, "Is-is that, you over there, from the past I mean?" he pointed at Harry.

_Dad? _Questioned Harry silently, wait- were those kids… could they possibly be… _**his? **_It seemed obvious now that he thought about it._ How had he not realized before? _Then again, he was having difficulty getting a single rational thought out at the moment so maybe you couldn't blame him. Still, the younger boy was essentially his twin, minus the scar, and the older boy, while less alike, still looked very similar, with the wild hair and whatnot. But wait, the girl, was _**she**_ his too? But then why did she look just like Ginny? _Did- Did that mean what he thought it meant?_ Harry once again felt as if he'd been hit over the head with a heavy plank of wood, and began to feel very dizzy; he was barely listening as Ron began to yell at him...

"Harry!" Ron shouted, wholly ignoring the five people ogling at him from across the room, "Don't just run off like that! You could have been_ killed_ or something!" he paused to catch his breath. "Seriously, are you bloody _mental?!_ I know you want to help the Order, trust me we _all_ do!" he turned and made some manic gesture towards the Order members near him, looking _directly at_ the gaping family, but not giving them a second glance. "But at least give us some kind of warning before you go dashing in like some-Wait a minute…"

Ron Weasley came to an abrupt halt in his loud, spectacular rant, and slowly turned back behind himself again. He gaped at the disheveled family for what felt like eternity before finally opening his mouth and choking out, "Who are _they_?"

Ron's blue eyes darted madly to every face in the room until settling on the younger Harry doppelganger, his head quickly snapping between him and fifteen year old Harry so rapidly it was like he was watching a particularly heated tennis match.

"_**Harry, why are there two of you?"**_ he sounded extremely alarmed. Harry had the sudden, irrational desire to laugh hysterically, but his head was still spinning, so what came out was what sounded vaguely like a donkey being brutally murdered via strangling.

Hermione, of course, had caught on ages before Ron, and Harry could practically see the cogs turning in her head as she pieced it together. "Harry!" she blurted, but she was not looking at fifteen year old Harry Potter; her mouth was wide open at thirty seven year old Harry and his companions.

"This is not possible. I've read the theory th-this should _not_ be happening," she muttered so quickly, it was nearly indistinguishable from her panicked breaths.

"Hermione, I can honestly tell you, I'm not sure what's happening either," Older Harry said, shaking his head, and looking straight into her eyes. "Well... I think I should probably clear things up, shouldn't I?" he started with the awkward air of one giving a large presentation with absolutely nothing prepared.

You know, if the audience for that presentation were a group of confused people who were over twenty years younger than you knew them to be, not to mention your fifteen year old, teenage past self. But he was spared this discomfort when a new person entered the now quite crowded room.

A very nervous looking fourteen year old Ginny Weasley, "Someone just appeared in the hallway, a lot of people actually…" she said urgently. However, before she could elaborate, she caught sight of Lily, and her jaw all but dropped to the floor.

Harry was rather fascinated to see where this was going, but right then, two people rushed into the now _very _crowded basement familiarly mirroring the scene from not five minutes ago.

* * *

One was a man, tall, freckle-faced, with flaming (and somewhat thinning) ginger hair, who was currently rubbing his blue eyes in total disbelief. The other was a woman of average height, with bushy brown hair, whose eyes seemed to be sucking information from the air around her as they dashed around lingering briefly on each face in turn. Behind them, Harry could spy two children and a young man with bright blue hair, all of whom were clutching their heads, evidently highly disoriented.

"Where..?" the new, brown-haired woman began to say, before her eyes settled onto Hermione's and then went wide with shock.

"No, it can't be!" said fifteen year old Hermione, before nudging Ron with her elbow. She let out a shaky breath before croaking, "Ron…Ron I think that's- _I think that's us!"_

* * *

**A/N So... what do you think? Sorry, I would have had this up earlier, but their were new chapters on Pottermore last night(!), and I had school and whatnot. Thank you to everyone who reviewed,followed, and favorited (is that a word?) I honestly didn't expect anyone to actually like this... So thanks! I'll hopefully have chapter three up soon. Next chapter you might _possibly_ be getting the story of how they got there *hint,hint* Suggestions still welcome! Leave a review? Please?!**

**Seriously, I'm not kidding...**


	3. Bloody Hell

Harry Potter and the Twist in Time

**Bloody Hell!**

"What d'you mean 'That's us'?" exploded a dumbstruck Ron Weasley.

"Exactly what I said Ron," murmured the teenage girl beside him, Hermione Granger, so quietly that fifteen year old Harry Potter could scarcely hear. "I think that's us."

Fifteen year old Ron Weasley shot her a look, "Have you lost it?" he told her bluntly. "That can't be us, _we're_ us," he frantically gestured to Hermione and himself.

She opened her mouth, seemingly ready to argue, but she was cut off by the 'that' in question. Well, technically speaking, 'that' was a 'they'

'They' were the second set of strangers to mysteriously arrive at 12 Grimmauld Place in the last hour or so. Part of Harry was shocked that an hour had already passed, the other half felt as if it had spent weeks standing around in that basement petrified like a statue. This _new_ set of strangers was comprised of two children looking between the ages of nine and eleven, a tall man with the same familiar looking bright red hair and blue eyes as the children, an intelligent looking woman with bushy brown hair who Harry assumed was the kids' mother, and a young man with turquoise hair and eyes that continued to change like a kaleidoscope.

Their sudden arrival had just interrupted an explanation coming from the _first_ set of mysterious strangers… The first set of strangers who'd turned out to be time travelers. Yes, time travelers, Harry could barely believe it. Not only that, but one of them had been revealed as an adult Harry Potter, _from the future._

_So, _fifteen year old Harry thought, the first intelligible thoughts to swim out of his muddled mind in what seemed to be forever. _Since that's me, then __they__ must be-, _but he too was cut off by the ginger man shouting, "Harry!" before glancing around the room and confusedly asking, "Where… where are we?"

"Hermione! Ron!" breathed the still nameless redheaded woman who had arrived with future Harry along with three children who bore an uncanny resemblance to both Harry and Ginny Weasley, Ron's sister, who was also currently in the room gawking at the strangers.

"Yes…?" perked up Ron; but she was not looking at him, nor Hermione. She was looking right though him at the two newest adult strangers.

"Harry! Ginny!" yelped the brown-haired woman towards the woman and future Harry.

"Ginny?" repeated Harry quietly, _so that's who she was!_

"Ginny? Harry? What?" parroted Ron, utterly lost.

"Wait… Ron?" whispered Hermione cautiously, and the fifteen year-old redhead turned to her. However, she did not return his eyes. _She _was looking at the red-haired man who looked back and promptly choked, "Hermione?!" The girl in question gulped before giving a stiff nod.

The man's head whipped around to glance at Mrs. Weasley, "Mum?"

Mrs. Weasley looked puzzled. Well, _more_ puzzled, I should say, as every single face in the room held at least some trace of severe puzzlement. "Mum?"

The bushy haired woman's keen eyes landed on Lupin, Tonks, and Sirius, all of whom had their wands trained on her and the other strangers. This had some of the younger children five of them now, looking _quite startled,_ though not nearly as much as most people would expect children of their age to be. _Either they had_ _quite a bit of nerve,_ thought Harry, _or they ran into this sort of thing often_. He hoped desperately for their sake it was the former, for he knew firsthand what it was like to have a knack for getting into trouble.

"Remus… Sirius… _Tonks_," the woman appeared both mesmerized and as if she'd been punched in the gut.

That, however was _nothing_ compared to the response of the boy with kaleidoscope eyes. _His_ reaction was something akin to having been run over by a truck, "Harry," he elbowed Harry's older incarnation. "That's- that's _them_ isn't it?" he said, pointing at Lupin and Tonks, voice heavy with disbelief. Future Harry gave a slow nod and carefully glanced at him, watching him like he was a frightened animal or a ticking time-bomb. Teenage Harry was very curious as to who the young man was, and why he was so interested in Lupin and Tonks. Unlike the other younger strangers, he held little resemblance to him, Hermione, or either of the Weasleys.

_"Teddy…"_ his older self said to the blue-haired boy.

"Harry!" came the response.

"Harry?!" this came from teenage Ron who was ogling at the Future Harry and the other adults like they were a hoard of bowtie wearing Blast-Ended Skrewts.

"Dad?" this came from the bushy-haired redheaded girl in a small sort of voice. What followed was a torrent of shouting that came in sharp contrast to the stunned silence of earlier.

"Rose-"

"Al?"

"James…"

"Yeah, Lil?"

"Kingsley!"

"WHO**?"**

"What?"

"_Hermione?!"_

"Hugo..."

"**ENOUGH!" **roared Future Ginny, teenage Harry marveled at how quickly she took control of the situation, a far cry from the shy, quiet girl she'd been at age eleven. He _also_ noticed that Future Ginny was quite pretty. Not unlike current Ginny for that matter, who, now that he put some thought into it, Harry noticed was _very__ pretty_… _Wait, where did that come from?_ Harry wondered, surprised at himself for getting so off topic. He shook his head, and forced his attention back to the throng of time-travelers and Order members in the room.

"Thanks," Adult Harry muttered to her, and she flashed a small, weak smile in response. Was it just Harry's imagination, or was there a bit of_ affection_ in that smile? No, it was beyond affection, something… _else_, something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Future Harry spoke again, "Ron, Hermione, what are you doing here?"

_So that __was__ Ron and Hermione! _Thought Harry, his suspicions confirmed. This simply served to unleash even _more_ questions in Harry's mind. _What was going on with him and Ginny? Who were the kids? Since that couple had been Ron and Hermione, were those children, the Weasley-esque redheads… were those… their kids?_

Er…_wow_. By this point Harry's thoughts were once again turning incoherent. Ever since last year at the Yule Ball he'd had a vague feeling that there was _something_ going on between his two best friends, but _this_? _Merlin's Pants…_ And above all that, the most prominent lingering question still remained. _Why were they here?_

"I have no idea," admitted Ron, answering both present and future Harrys' questions, or rather, _not_ answering them. "We just sort of leaped in after you went after Crouch, honestly, did you expect us to stay behind? And as for them," he gestured towards the kids, "You know them, _way_ too much like us-"

"Uncle Ron! But we didn't-!" protested one of the kids, a boy of about fourteen with messy black hair and deep brown eyes whom Harry thought he'd earlier heard being called James.

"While I think explanations _would_ be in order," Sirius interrupted and turned to the adults. "Harry, Ron, Hermione… Ginny?" he addressed them each in turn, "I think introductions, and probably verification of identity had best come first."

The last three nodded and whipped out their wands, "Expecto Patronum," they muttered in unison. Harry however observed a noticeable falter in the silvery wisps emitted from Adult Hermione's vine wand. _Hermione having trouble with a spell? How did that happen?_ Harry questioned in his head. Future Ron, he noticed, seemed different too. He still remained very much Ron Weasley, but a bit more… serious, a little more scarred somehow. Hermione Granger having trouble with a spell, and a mature Ron Weasley… Harry mused, _Interesting_.

Despite the initial difficulty, eventually, an otter, a horse, and what looked like some sort of small dog, blindingly bright in the dim room, materialized in the air before them.

Every face, which looked eerie in the dim light and wavering glow of the Patronuses, snapped to Future Harry who nodded, "Definitely them."

"So, introductions?" he sounded both awkward and business-like at the same time. "I'm Harry Potter," Despite the fact that teenage Harry had already known that, the phrase still sounded so… alien. Glancing over at Ron and Ginny he found astonishment written on both their faces; Hermione seemed a tad less so, but surprised nevertheless.

The redheaded man appeared to need to gather himself up a bit before speaking, "Ron Weasley." At this, teenage Ron looked as if he'd just been Confunded. Harry could see a million questions running through his head, only Ron looked too shocked to say anything.

Frankly, his parents didn't look much better. Mr. Weasley had the expression on his face usually reserved for whenever he was around muggles, except with more amazement than simple curiosity. Meanwhile, Mrs. Weasley, had her face frozen in an expression of bug-eyed wonder.

The two women, Adult Ginny and Hermione, Harry caught exchanging a significant glance. They seemed to be asking each other the same question through their eyes. _Should we tell them? No…yes… I don't know!_ Finally they appeared to reach a silent agreement and turned back to speak to the engrossed crowd

"Hermione…" the brown-haired woman spoke first, "Hermione _Weasley_."

Then came Future Ginny's turn, she appeared to hesitate, "Ginny… _Potter_"

All of a sudden everything snapped into place in Harry's mind. The two boys with the untidy jet black hair, Al and James, Harry was almost certain they belonged to him. The two of them had been acting very… brotherly towards the younger girl, Lily. Lily, who just so_ happened_ to look almost exactly like Ginny Weasley, only that wasn't a coincidence was it? The boys were his, the girl was their sister, and Ginny…_ Ginny was their mother_. That smile earlier, fifteen year old Harry Potter could now _perfectly_ describe what had been in that small, fleeting smile. That hadn't been affection, it was not mere friendliness, and it was _far_ beyond simple caring. That was_ love_.

_He was marrying Ginny Weasley._

* * *

**A/N: Well, there's chapter three. Sorry, I know I hinted you'd be getting an explanation this chapter, but it was getting really long, so I decided to split it. But this does mean you'll hopefully be getting chapter four sooner since I've got it partially written. I feel like this chapter wasn't as good, partly because it was more dialogue driven which I'm not as good at... But your thoughts? You, have been fantastic readers, and THANK YOU SO MUCH! Oh my Rowling, you are so totally awesome for reviewing, and following, and favoriting (again, is that a word?, 'cause I still don't know) you make my day, seriously. I've got the story mostly planned out now, but suggestions are still welcome! Leave a review? Please?! **

**P.S: Egoats/Sally, that line about the bowtie wearing Blast-Ended Skrewts, I hope you enjoyed that...**


	4. Answers at Last

Harry Potter and the Twist in Time

**Answers at Last**

He was going to become an Auror, have three children, and marry Ginevra Weasley. Fifteen year old Harry Potter rattled off the facts like they were from someone else's life. Just trivial, random bits of information like the kind found in a history textbook, plain and impersonal. Only they weren't, this was Harry's _future._

It all fit now, The strangers were strangers no longer, in fact they were about as far from being strangers as it possible to be. He gulped hard, as if trying to keep a frog from leaping out of his throat. _Sure, why not? _He thought_, it's not as if crazier things haven't happened_. Well, that was certainly true; after all, he was currently in a room with his 37 year old future self, adult versions of his best friends, his future children and future wife. Crazy indeed.

He dared a glance over at his current, teenage best friends, Ron and Hermione. The latter of whom was blushing scarlet, the former was white as a sheet and looked about ready to faint. Frankly, Harry couldn't blame them, as they'd just discovered they were getting married to each other and having two kids. It was _kind of_ a lot to take in.

A blanket of silence rested over them, suffocating any and all noise. There was no way Harry could bring himself to speak, nor, he guessed, could anyone else in the room, Order of the Phoenix and all. _Especially_ not the Weasleys, present_ or_ future, they all looked as if they'd had their tongues torn out.

Speaking of the future Weasleys… Harry was marrying Ginny, Hermione was marrying Ron. That was two additions to the already populous Weasley clan right there. Not to mention the kids, five in all, Lily, James, Al, Rose and Hugo. And there was the mysterious young man with the turquoise hair, Teddy. Harry was puzzled about his identity, as Teddy didn't look similar to any of the future adults.

Train of thought running wild, he turned to his own… children, the very idea of whom just seemed so_ foreign_. The girl, Lily was a carbon copy of Ginny. Her hair was a little more rumpled, freckles in different places, and of course, she was younger than Present Ginny, but the resemblance was still uncanny. James, the eldest looking at about fourteen or so, carried traces of Harry, but upon further inspection revealed features of Ginny as well. Especially the brown eyes, though his were filled with mischief. And there was the younger boy, Al, who looked like an eleven year old Harry without the glasses and infamous scar.

Harry mulled over the name, _Al… Al…Albus? As in __Dumbledore?_

To be honest, Harry was currently not very happy with the headmaster of Hogwarts. For three months, he'd been left in the muggle world. With next to no information on the happenings of the Order of the Phoenix (or even word of its _existence_) he'd been reduced to collecting snippets of information from the muggle news and trying to piece things together as best he could. It had taken him almost _dying_, and subsequently almost getting_ arrested_ for underage magic to get taken from Privet Drive. _Meanwhile,_ the wizarding world had been calling him a crazy liar. Wonderful.

Dumbledore hadn't contacted, spoken, or even _looked_ at Harry in months. The injustice of it burned into Harry. He'd been the one to tell them Voldemort had returned, after all.

And deep down, though he refused to admit it to himself, Harry couldn't help but hope that maybe, just maybe, he was… special? _Well_, he thought shaking his head_, I name my son after him don't_ I_? So that means _something_ happens, right?_

Forcing himself out of these thoughts he glanced at Ron and Hermione's kids, whom he'd gathered were called Rose and Hugo. They both had the hallmark Weasley hair, and eyes shaped like Hermione's, only in Ron's deep blue. Seeing those features together alarmed Harry, though not nearly as much as looking at his own children.

Looking at his own children made him a little dizzy, okay maybe a lot dizzy… very, _very,_ dizzy.

He tried to clear his head, but found his eyes magnetically drawn to those of the man he would one day become. And slowly, he realized a couple of things.

He had a future, and, more than that, a _family._ A real, actual family, it was the stuff of his wildest dreams.

But Harry became more contemplative as he delved into the details, namely, Ginny. **Ginny**, _Ginny,_ Ginny, GINNY. Her name was written across his thoughts like a screaming neon sign.

He was marrying Ginny Weasley. They'd known each other for years of course. After all, her brother was Harry's best friend, and her family had practically adopted them as one of their own. He was also aware that she had always been rather_ taken_ with him and shy around him as a result. Lately though, she'd opened up more, actually started _talking _to him. And he liked that; she was nice, had a good personality, smart, fun, etc. But _this?_

His wild jumble of thoughts and (very intense) feelings was interrupted by the booming voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt. "And him?" he asked gesturing towards the mysterious blue-haired boy.

Harry noticed his future self in particular suddenly looked very awkward and guilty. Why? Was Teddy his too? But then, wait… doing the math quickly in his head, he realized that if future him was thirty-seven, and Teddy looked about twenty that meant… Seventeen? Harry promptly choked and began coughing. Bloody hell, he was _not _having a child at seventeen, was he? Was he?! _**Was he?!**_

Seeing this obvious alarm, Future Harry hastily blurted "Not mine!" and Harry sighed with relief. Future Harry's bright green eyes swept the room once before looking back at Kingsley, "This is –"

"Teddy," the boy cut in, Harry saw him glance around the room as well before firmly locking eyes with Lupin and Tonks. "…Teddy Lupin."

_Whoa! _The room's atmosphere became even more stunned than before, which was saying alot. Forget trucks, Lupin looked like he'd been trampled by a gang of rhinoceroses. Tonks, on the other hand, looked something close to… ecstatic?

Looking at his turquoise hair, she gasped, "Y- you- you're-"she stumbled. "Change for me, let me see."

Harry had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but Teddy evidently did as he adopted a strange look on his face. An oddly _familiar_ one, like he was trying very hard to remember something.

Then all of a sudden his bright blue hair turned purple, then bubble-gum pink to match Tonks's, and now so flamingly ginger he looked like a Weasley, before finally settling back to his vibrant shade of bright blue.

He was a Metamorphmagus, like Tonks, but… he was a Lupin. So then…

Teddy offered a small bittersweet smile, "Hey Mum," he croaked, "Dad"

Harry had NOT seen that coming.

* * *

Teddy was still looking at his… parents, like they were ghosts that might disappear any second, hesitant but elated and about a million other emotions too, written across his face all at once. Remus seemed terrified, not of Teddy or that Tonks was his mother, but at the very_ idea_ of having a child. Beside him, Tonks was fighting to meet Remus's eyes and embracing Teddy like a long-lost son, which, in a way, he was.

_Lupin and Tonks, Tonks and Lupin_, Harry tried to wrap his head around it_. Well, it's not any weirder than anything else that's been going on… _He stopped and considered it, the two of them were certainly good people, they'd make good parents.

He returned to reality in time to hear Ron shout, "So let me get this straight…" he spoke directly at the time travelers. "_You're_ all from the future. _You're_ Harry, who's married to _my sister_, and those are your _kids_." He gestured expressively at them all. "You," he pointed at Teddy, "Are Lupin and Tonks's son." He now looked directly at his future self," And you're _**me **_in 22 years, married to _Hermione_, and they," he waved somewhat close to Rose and Hugo, "are your- my- _our… __kids_?!"

Future Ron paused for a second, "Yeah, I'd say that sums it up pretty well."

"Alright then, just clarifying," Ron nodded in a cool, casual manner.

Then he fainted.

It didn't seem like he'd be the only one, either. Lupin had his eyes darting between Tonks and Teddy like he still couldn't believe it. In fact, he looked about ready to sprint for the door, except… the door was blocked.

The Twins, who everyone seemed to have forgotten about. Harry remembered, when the time travelers had come, they'd been up in their room, probably doing something that involved a lot of explosions. Harry judged from the singe marks on their eyebrows. _Guess they didn't hear._

_"_So, what's all the hubbub?"

Mrs. Weasley's face snapped of her current, rather giddy expression and lit up in alarm. "Boys! Go upstairs!"

But it was too late; they'd already caught sight of the cluster of time travelers and looked up, bewildered.

"Fred!" blurted out all the future adults who quickly masked their surprise. Why they were so surprised, Harry didn't know. He really didn't want to consider the various unappealing possibilities.

"Er, who're they?" piped up Fred looking gradually more alarmed by the second.

"And why's Ron on the floor?" added George, "And Ginny, since when d'you have a twin?"

Hermione quickly and quietly filled them in in a small squeaky voice. After that, the twins had glanced around as if they were waiting for someone to pop out and shout "April Fools'!" (even though it was the middle of August).

"Okaaaaay then," said Fred once he'd processed it all, "But why are they here?"

"That's what we_ all_ wanna know," groaned Ron from the ground, clutching his head.

* * *

It all was very surreal once everyone had gotten properly acquainted around the dining table from which they had come an hour prior.

Harry's stone cold treacle tart still sat on the plate in front of him, but Harry didn't feel much like eating. At this point, Harry felt like food would only serve to further irritate the butterflies fluttering restlessly inside his stomach.

"Before we begin," said Kingsley, "I think it's for the best that we agree none of this leaves this room."

They all nodded and Adult Harry spoke up first,mumbling,"This still feels like a dream...Right then," Harry noted he suddenly looked calmer, and curiously professional, like giving status reports to Kingsley was something he did on a daily basis.

"We were all at the Ministry before we got here. You see, there's been an odd spike in Dark Magic activity recently-."

"Wait," Harry interrupted himself, a thought suddenly hitting him, "In twenty-two years, is Voldemort… is-is he gone?"

Future Harry took on a very awkward expression; like this was the very last thing he wanted to talk about right now. No, beyond that, like it was something that **hurt** too much. But in the end, he nodded sliently.

Harry didn't think it was possible for anyone to be any more astounded than they already were, but somehow they managed it.

A world without Voldemort, without the ominous threat of Death Eaters hanging over their heads, Harry marveled. It sounded wonderful to Harry, but the look in his future self's eyes gave him the impression that it had come at a terrible price. Of course Harry was curious why, but his adult self didn't look like he wanted to elaborate. Given the looks he kept shooting at several members of the Order, Harry wasn't sure he wanted him to elaborate either. Everyone looked full of questions, but no one got the opportunity to ask.

"It's been small stuff, but there have been rumors flying about Death Eater resurgence," Future Hermione picked up where he'd left off, "And a couple nights ago, there were reports of the Dark Mark in a remote field north of Hogwarts."

"We were having a conference, all of us, about our next course of action," chipped in Future Ron, "'Cause you know, defense against the Dark Arts… kind of our thing," he shrugged offhandedly. Harry was glad to hear him say _our _thing, _We're still a team then, even after twenty years_.

Future Harry squinted, "Kids were with us, since we weren't supposed to be there long, but I guess time got away from us,_ literally_." Harry couldn't quite bring himself to chuckle at that, "I had a hunch, this weird… feeling about the Department of Mysteries."

"Department of Mysteries?" said Hermione, whose voice had lost its squeaky edge, but still sounded dazed. "Excuse me, er… Harry? What- exactly- do they do there?"

"I have no idea," he responded with a self-depreciating smirk. "I didn't really know what to_ do_ in the Department of Mysteries either. It was just this… instinct, so we pulled a couple of strings-"

"By which he means, called us and then snuck down there with his invisibility cloak," interrupted Future Ron, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, pretty much," Harry admitted, "Then I just sort of started walking around, first time I've been there since- wait it's summer isn't it, like in our time? Hasn't happened for you yet then," Harry observed he suddenly looked wistful, and so much older than his years. "Well," he croaked with a shake of his head like he was trying to fight off inner demons, "I haven't been in a hurry to go back."

Harry caught his future self's eyes seem to resist the urge to flicker in Sirius's direction. _Why? _

"We followed after him," piped up Adult Ron, "Because, well, it's kind of a traumatic place. Had to make sure you were okay…" he spoke directly to future Harry now, and looked apprehensive along with Hermione.

Future Ginny slipped her hand into her husband's, and Teenage Harry couldn't help but notice a ring sparkling there, suddenly it became a _lot_ harder to keep focus. He also noticed for the first time, that together, they really looked like a family.

"Then he just seemed to... melt from the shadows, came out of nowhere" Adult Ginny shuddered.

"Who?" demanded Sirius.

"Crouch, Barty Crouch Jr."

Kingsley's eyes widened, "Him? Can't be, the Dementors Kissed him."

"My thoughts exactly," said Harry, "But it was unmistakably him, I know it. It's hard to explain, like, like I've lived this _before_. Does that make sense?"

It didn't to Teenage Harry, but in Hermione's eyes, both of them, he saw the telltale glimmering of an idea beginning to sprout there. However, she didn't say a word.

"We got shoved into a room filled with time-turners, there was a crash, and everything was just a blur," said Harry, and then he turned to his younger self. "I couldn't catch a lot of it, it's hard to describe... Remember when you used the time-turner with Hermione? It was like that, only so much _faster_. And blurrier and just-"

"Next thing I know, here we are," said Ginny, who was casting a stern look at her children. "Speaking of which, I thought I told _you_ to stay in your father's office."

"Did you now?" replied James who seemed to be trying very hard to sound sweet and innocent, "_I_ don't remember _anything_ about that, Mum, do _you_ Al?" he elbowed his brother tersely.

"Nope, nothing," Albus Potter wasn't as good a liar as James, and quailed under the force of his mother's glare. Lily, Rose, and Hugo, looked rather afraid as well, Harry noted.

"And don't think I've forgotten _you_ in this," reprimanded Hermione in a sharp sort of voice. "You are in _heaps_ of trouble," the other kids winced painfully.

"Hey!" piped up James, "Who else is tired because I am _exhausted!" _he gave a long exaggerated yawn.

"Are you now? Because that's _also_ what you said last term after blowing up Moaning Myrtle's toilet!" shot back Ginny. (The twins exchanged a wayward grin that quite clearly said, 'We like him'). _Harry_ liked the sound of Ginny's voice, but didn't quite know why. He snapped himself out of it just in time to hear his son protest back.

"They fixed it right after! And Myrtle didn't scream _nearly_ as loud as they made it out to be! Honestly Mum, that git Parkinson's got it in for me! Just because it sprayed all over his robes doesn't mean he has to so _snippy _about it, Besides, I had_ 2 whole weeks of detention_, I've learned my lesson!" he added, not too convincingly.

"You had detention with _Neville_, that is by no means harsh."

"Professor Longbottom is _very_ intimidating!" James still didn't sound very convincing, but you had to give the kid points for trying.

Future Ron snorted, "To Death Eaters maybe, to you? Sure and _I'm_ a Pygmy Puff," he scoffed.

Harry did a double take at that. _Did I hear that right? Professor Longbottom? __Neville __Longbottom_? He would have asked (that, and SO many other questions besides) but the answer he wanted most right now was the one he vocalized out loud.

" Er...As much as I'd like to ask about a million more questions, I've got to know… What do we do now?" he spoke to the assembled mass.

Nobody said a single word.

* * *

**A/N: So... yeah, thoughts? Sorry for the long wait (don't kill me!) I was really insecure about this chapter, still not entirely satisfied with it, but I figured if I didn't post it now, I would never be able to bring myself to. Tons of writer's block with this one, sort of had to force it out... I got your feedback on the chapter length, so here's my longest chapter yet! Too long? Just right? Too short? (gosh, I hope not) Chapter 4 will be coming soon (hopefully) I've got some Harry/Sirius drama planned (though I'm not known for my reliability, so that may change) **

**Sirius thanks (pun unintended) to everyone who's reviewed, followed, and/or favorited (now pretty sure that's _not_ a word). THANK YOU SO MUCH! (on a sidenote, there are, like 3 other fics with the same title as this one. Does anyone have any ideas?) As always, I'd like your thoughts, leave a review? Honestly I'm begging, PLEASE?!**


	5. A Different Side of Things

Harry Potter and the Twist in Time

**A Different Side of Things**

Today was by far, the weirdest, craziest, most _mental _experience of Albus Severus Potter's entire eleven year existence.

And that was saying quite a bit considering a) he was a wizard b) he was both a Potter _and_ a Weasley, neither of which were families with reputations for living calm, quiet, lives, and c) he had James Sirius Potter for a brother.

As wise as it would be to blame James for this particular venture, it never even crossed Albus's hardly functioning mind to deny his involvement. Even if it had, no one would have believed him in a million years. What could he say? He wasn't exactly a _James _(that was an entirely different level of troublemaking entirely), but he had a special gift when it came to causing 'trouble'. Well... trouble was one word for it, 'insanity' was another.

Blame it on the genes.

So, when his mother had sternly commanded that he, his siblings, and cousins remain in his Dad's office, they may or may not have bended the rules a bit… or a lot. His mind flashed back to several hours prior… or 22 years into the future, depending on how you look at it.

* * *

"Hey Dad?" Albus called towards his father's departing form.

"Yeah Al?" his father replied distractedly, turning a harried face.

"Where you going?" Al had no reservations about asking this question, his dad welcomed them all.

His father had given a slightly worrying, slow response of, "I'm not really sure, stay in the office, okay? I'll be back in a sec. Go tell your Mum, Uncle and Aunt I'm in the Department of Mysteries," before swishing out his old invisibility cloak.

That last sentence was enough to send Al's eyebrows flying up his forehead. _The Department of Mysteries? But that place was deserted! Wasn't it? _

He'd heard the stories of course; all sorts of rumors surrounded the secretive abandoned department. Ranging from the unlikely to the bizarre (for example, the Quibbler, saying it was a home base for the 'Rotfang Conspiracy' which in recent years, was 'secretly infiltrating the Order of Muggle Dentistry') but on the whole, the place was shrouded in, well, _mystery._

Being a Potter-Weasley, though, Al knew a bit more than the general public. It was a topic his family tended to avoid, and he knew that had something to do with Dad's godfather Sirius.

According to Aunt Hermione, it used to be where the Ministry would conduct secret research projects, before most of the personnel were killed or mysteriously vanished in the Wizarding War. Uncle Ron's description consisted of the words 'Completely mental' and then some indistinct mumbling about 'brain choking' and 'Uranus'.

Al knew better than to ask Luna…

He had delivered the news to the adults, who responded with immediate concern. Then came a crash and they all went running down a corridor, Mum telling them _quite clearly_ to remain _in_ the office.

She should have realized that was _never_ going to happen. James and Ted immediately proposed they go check it out; despite some initial apprehension, the kids eventually found themselves in a chamber of doors lit only by white-blue flames. The original rotating mechanism had since shut down, but there were still so many doors it was pure dumb luck that they'd heard raised voices ringing down a corridor before they'd gotten completely lost.

Or perhaps not-so-lucky as that had turned out to lead into a- _was it a trap_? Albus didn't really know. All he caught before tumbling into a blinding, dizzying void was the telltale _clink _of shattering glass and a pair of mad, bloodshot eyes underneath matted straw colored hair. Then everything was lost, and he'd woken up in… 1995?

So there he was, in a dusty dining room with his teenaged parents and a bunch of dead people, not to mention no clue of what to do next. This was shown quite clearly by the words that had just tumbled from his fifteen (yes, fifteen!) year old dad's mouth.

He glanced around the room, at all the faces he'd only seen in pictures; there was Uncle Fred, and Uncle George with both ears, Sirius Black, and of course Teddy's parents. _It's like stories they used to tell us, only real, _Al thought. Then there, beside a startlingly young Aunt Hermione was Mum. She was blushing and blinking very quickly, as if questioning whether this was all some vivid dream. There was something about where her eyes were pointing, Al was mystified. _That's it! _She was looking pretty much anywhere but Dad.

And- _whoa, Dad! Hagrid wasn't kidding when he said I looked just like him. _This younger version of his dad was looking straight at him with wide green eyes (Albus's _exactly_) which quickly fled and flashed to James and Lily before finally settling on… Grandma Weasley?

His not-yet grandmother was slowly coming to her feet, and as she did so, Al was hit by two unnerving realizations. The first was that this was 1995, Al didn't have quite the memory that Rose did, but he spent quite enough time around her he supposed he had picked up a bit of her astounding intellect. 1995, he was pretty sure, was slightly before his parents had gotten together, imagining his parents with anyone but each other was simply… alien, and a tiny bit nauseating.

The second hit him like a rampaging hippogriff. If they weren't together yet, then _that_ meant the war wasn't over yet. He and his family had landed themselves in the middle of a war. This was a time of fear, of death, and the rise of Voldemort.

As Uncle Ron would say, 'Bloody Hell'

* * *

"What do we do now?"

Running his hands through his hair, fifteen year old Harry Potter was getting increasingly frustrated. Once he'd gotten over the initial shock of having the basic framework of his future laid out in front of him (and everyone else) now he just felt numb. He almost wanted to shut down, take a nap or something while he let all of the information sink in.

But there was _no way_ he was going to let that happen. There was still so much to ask, so much to know. He wasn't sure it was best to ask all this yet though, everything he knew about time travel (which wasn't a lot, it still made his head spin no matter how many lectures Hermione gave him) told him knowing too much of your future wasn't healthy. So, he focused on the present.

They needed a plan. He was so immersed in thought he paid no mind to the fact his… kids were currently being told off by… his apparent wife. To be honest, he was trying to ignore all of them, pondering his future would distract him, right now he needed to were five people from the future standing around the dining table, and so far, nobody knew what to do with them. He suddenly realized that he'd been staring at one of his kids, Albus, during this silent reflection, and clicked his eyes onto Mrs. Weasley, who was coming to her feet.

"Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione?" looking at the adult versions she said their names slowly, and gazing into their eyes, almost as if trying to verify their unbelievable identities. "It's late, don't you think my… grandkids, could get a bit of sleep? And I daresay, _you_" here, she looked at the teenagers, "could use a bit too?"

_Sleep? What? _ Harry wasn't an idiot, he knew they were just trying to get rid of them, so they could get to planning without the _'bothersome' _children in the way. _I am not a liability! _The anger started to surge in Harry, and he prepared to protest. He wasn't the only one; the twins, Hermione, Ron, and James all shot to their feet as well. But Sirius beat them to it

"Molly," he paused, choosing his words carefully, "while I think it's best we plan _together, _I think before making a plan, we need to _talk_… without the children."

Harry didn't know exactly what he was going to say, but he was about ready to yell _something _when he felt a hand on his shoulder, it was Ron.

'_Don't argue' _he mouthed shaking his bright red head _no_. Harry was caught off guard, he'd have thought Ron would have been as defiant as he. _So _w_hy isn't he-?_

However, his question was answered by a nod of the head from Ron towards Fred (who was in the middle of sulkily handing over all of his extendible ears along with George), who in turn gestured to James. Harry watched in bewilderment as his son mouthed, '_I've got a plan' _and discreetly motioned to his coat pocket.

Harry hesitated, but with an uncertain sigh, he stepped out without a word. He was careful to avoid Sirius's eyes since he knew that would betray his confusion, it was uncharacteristic enough for him not to fight back, his godfather was probably already suspicious.

They walked into a corridor occupied by the hulking Tapestry of Black, generation after generation of pureblood staring haughtliy down at them all.

He turned to face them, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Fred, George, Rose, Hugo, James, Lily, and Albus. His hand brushed past Ginny as he went, and he blushed, moving to go stand between Hermione and Ron instead. Both of _them_ seemed grateful for the excuse to not stand beside each other and were pointedly avoiding each other's eyes.

They all stood in a lumpy circle for several moments in awkward silence. Harry, in a hurry to find out what exactly this plan was, loudly cleared his throat. And spoke directly to his children for the very first time.

"So… er what did you have planned?" It did not escape him that the his future children were giving him the most intense stares he'd ever received in his life. Considering he was Harry Potter, that was saying quite a lot.

Albus Potter was the first to shake off his shock, "Right, umm, Dad… Okay, first of all we should probably make sure we all know each other… you know... I mean, _you_ don't really know _us_. And we don't know how old all of _you_ are"

Harry nodded, it made sense but this had to go fast, "Alright then, I'm Harry Potter, fifteen… and _apparently_ your father…." He trailed off feeling strange introducing himself to a group of people who already knew him, possibly better than he himself did.

Ron clumsily came forward next, "Ron Weasley, fifteen and… _yeah_" he looked over at Rose and Hugo who were rather openly gawking at him and Hermione.

James, who seemed to be the calmest and eldset of the future kids as far as Harry could tell, went next, "James Sirius Potter, thirteen, and eldest child of Ginny and Harry Potter," he finished off with a bit of a flourish.

Ginny coughed loudly, and going redder than her hair rushed, "Ginny Weasley, fourteen."

Her near identical daughter came up, "Lily Potter, nine" Harry could see the nervousness playing out on his… daughter's face and almost wanted to comfort her, but had absolutely no clue what to do. _Hoping I'm not as rubbish at parenting as I am now... otherwise they're doomed._

"Albus Potter, eleven, I'd prefer Al though." Al searched his teenage father's face carefully. Harry saw right away that he was the only one with green eyes, _Wonder if he ever gets 'you've got your grandmother's eyes' from anyone..._

After hasty introductions from Hermione, George, Rose (also eleven), Hugo (eight), and Fred (he noted that the kids seemed to be slightly more surprised at his) Harry spoke up before things descended back to silence again.

"Okay then, plan?"

His eldest son flashed what was nearly a grin, and a look in the Twins' direction, before fishing a plastic bag out of his pocket. A bag filled with what seemed to be… ears? _Extendable _ears!

"Newest model!" James chirped enthusiastically, turning to his siblings and cousins he added, "Uncle George gave me a few prototypes to test out; said they needed a real trickster's test before release and I've been looking for the perfect opportunity. Mum doesn't know yet, so I managed to sneak them." there was the slightest hint of a boast in his voice.

"Well, now I do!" Ginny chimed in, "I'm not sure whether to be impressed, irritated, or angry…" She turned to George, "You snuck my son pranking stuff under my nose?!" she gave him a light slap across the shoulder.

"Oi!" he protested, "I haven't even done it yet! And – wait…" His and Fred's heads snapped to each other so quickly it might've hurt, "Newest model? Does that mean…-?"

"-We made it?!" They evidently didn't require an answer, as they rejoiced jubilantly before getting one; the mere look in James's eyes seemed to be enough. "YES!"

"Fred and Roxy are gonna be _so _jealous they weren't here to see this," James interjected with a smirk, though looking the tiniest bit…depressed in spite of the twin's joy. "I'm right at the evolution of the business!"

"Wait, what was that bit about me?-"replied Fred.

"-And who's Roxy?"

Hugo answered, "Our cousins, Uncle George's kids. Fred, I think is crazier than Jamie over there."

Lily snorted, "Impossible, _no one _is crazier than James," she stopped with a Ginny-esque pause, "They're equally insane."

"Yeah Hugo_, _no one's crazier than me! Which is saying a lot, when you think about _our _family… And don't call me Jamie unless you want a Canary Cream shoved up your-"

But where exactly the avian pastry would have been placed, Harry would never know, since his eldest was cut off by George's, "Wait, I have _kids_?!"

The matter would have to wait however, as Ron cleared his throat, "Erm, I think they might be saying something now."

"Right!" James responded to his uncle, pulling out a handful of Extendables, "Roll 'em out, they should be clearer than the ones you're used to, and you can have them farther from the door."

Harry watched Fred and George's eyes light up excitedly, and couldn't help the corners of his mouth twitching up a bit. _If anyone could make a living off of pranking, it is most __definitely__ those two, glad to see they make good use of the gift. _ Referring to the Triwizard Tournament winnings he had bestowed upon them the previous year. If he hadn't been so agitated, he would have smiled as he took the eavsdropping device.

* * *

"Harry," he heard Sirius's voice through the door, presumably addressing his older self. "I'm not quite sure how to put this but… from your reactions upon seeing some of us, I'm guessing that not all of us are _alive_ in twenty-two years?"

Harry felt his throat constrict and his world spin once again when he heard no response but gasps. Only suffocating silence. _No, no, no! Say no!_

Harry had figured it too, but had been pushing away the idea as far away has he could without realizing it. Now all the fear came rushing in like a tsunami through floodgates as his blood went cold again. For a fraction of a second, he was back in the graveyard, Voldemort himself breathing down his neck, laughing. The tsunami drowned him, he couldn't breathe.

He was shocked back to the present in time to hear his godfather break the blanketing silence, "Namely, _me_. In twenty-two years, I'm going to be dead, and it's going to happen soon. Am I right?" His godfather's haggard voice held only the barest hint of a quiver; it was enough to make Harry choke.

**No, No NO! **He almost screamed, but remained deathly silent. The world was blurring, almost falling, it was like a Dementor attack all on its own. There was only the flimsiest wall holding back all the emotion in him.

That wall broke when he heard the next three words; his own voice came ringing back to him, older and mournful. Broken.

"I'm afraid so."

* * *

**A/N Well, there's chapter 5, first things first I AM SO SORRY. I made you wait _that_ long for this rubbish filler-ish chapter! So, sorry, I meant to have this up _ages_ ago, but I was working on a project for a friend (it's unlikely you're reading this, but happy birthday Dipthong Girl!) then i had awful writer's block, then I had a history essay, stupid Rome! ( history teacher, if you're reading this [which I hope you are] feel free to ignore that last bit). So, yeah most of this was written over the weekend at 2am... **

**Anyway! Thank you for bearing with me and my irresponsible authoriness and reading this. Apoligies for its shortness, promise the next one'll be longer! I tried out a different POV, and think I'll be doing that more often, feel free to suggest whose I use next. Happy late Halloween (R.I.P James &Lily!, happy deathday nick!) and to everyone suffering Hurricane Sandy, BE SAFE (though I _strongly _doubt you're reading this right now.) **

**To sum up this uneccesarily long authors note, I beg you for reviews! PLEASE! Now, I'm going to go get started on ch 6, and go eat something 'cause it's noon and I haven't eaten yet... REVIEW!**


	6. Hollow and Empty

Harry Potter and the Twist in Time

**Hollow and Empty**

Fate was cruel. Thirty-seven year old Harry James Potter had no idea what kind of mess they'd gotten themselves into. _He'd _gotten them into.

_Idiot! If I just hadn't gone down into that Department… _But there were more pressing matters on hand, he could blame himself later- if there _was _a later. Right now, he had a job to do.

The mystery here was _how_ Crouch had taken them all back in time, and _why? _For what sinister purpose? How was he even alive? And above all, what was their next move? What did they do now?

Apparently his thought process hadn't changed too much in past twenty years, as his fifteen year old self had just said the same thing.

Something else that hadn't changed were his emotions. He saw the faces in that room and old wounds that had carefully healed with time were slashed open again. Fred, Lupin, Tonks, Sirius, he mouthed their names silently and realized he was sorting them by how long they had left to live.

_Can I save them? _He was back in 1995, the start of the war, was it possible for him to change history? _Should I do it? _He'd faced this moral quandary at seventeen with the Resurrection Stone, and it had been far easier despite the fact he had been marching to his death. He knew to not bring them back, they were at rest, in peace in death. They had died and nothing could ever bring them back. But this time, what if he could prevent those deaths from happening at all?

Time was a tricky business, if he messed with it who knew what the outcome would be? It could turn out better, but it could also turn out so much worse. Besides, if he changed time, then wouldn't he have had no motivation to change it in the first place? So it never would have happened, but then if it never happened…

Harry's head was going in circles. He still didn't understand time travel; that definitely hadn't changed either.

What had changed was his family, there were more people in danger, more people to protect. His _family_ this time and, and there was _no way, _he was letting _anyone_ get hurt. _They were already my family in this time too, I just hadn't realized yet. _Harry had changed, there were things he understood now. He was stronger, but broken too.

As Sirius sent the kids out so they could 'talk' Harry almost felt as every bit and confused as the teenager standing outside the door. _Come to think of it, shouldn't I remember this having happened? _He thought but brushed it off. _So much for third year's time travel experience being the weirdest thing we've ever done. _Even without the deceased loved ones, meeting himself at age fifteen was _too weird._

_Maybe I haven't changed as much as I thought, _he audibly sighed and was glad the kids were out of room. Part of the reason he'd kept that level of composure this long was for their sake. He was usually cool under pressure (after all, think of what he'd had to deal with since childhood), but these were blades of a different sort that left a different kind of pain. Now that they the kids had left, that composure was threatening to jump out the window.

"Keep calm," he told himself, "it's just another Auror mission, you've done thousands of these." But he couldn't even lie to himself about that.

And apparently he hadn't been as silent as he'd thought, "Rubbish," whispered back his wife concerned, "it's anything _but _a normal Auror mission and you know it." The dubious look in Ginny's eyes was so like the one he'd expected he almost smiled and was tempted to kiss her right then and there.

_Er… maybe not. _With all the past people in the room, it might've turned out at _little bit _awkward_. But __we're__ not in the room! _ said a tiny part of his brain. He told that side of his brain to shut up and settled for grabbing her hand instead.

As comforting as the warmth was, it was drowned out by a far more discouraging thought , _She's in danger here too, everyone is. _

He turned back to the group, not at all prepared for the subsequent pain his chest. Choking down a lump in his throat, he forced himself to acknowledge what he'd been trying to push out of his head the entire time.

_Sirius._

His godfather had had wanted to talk to them, and he had an idea of what that meant. So much to say, too much to say. Those last goodbyes they'd never gotten. It was too difficult for words to choose, so he settled for the first that came to mind.

"What was it you wanted to talk about?" he said, voice thick with emotion and rough as sandpaper. _Not exactly being discreet here are we? _He mentally kicked himself.

The eyes that he hadn't seen properly in decades, those were what struck him the most. One glance was all it took to see, _he knows. _

Sirius suddenly cracked into what was nearly a smile, albeit a strange one. It was filled with hope, but at the same time, resigned.

"Not sure where to started answering that question, Harry. I think all of us have _a lot_ to talk about…" they studied each other's faces carefully, "Damn, you look like your dad … together the two of you look like James and Lily" he muttered as an afterthought. At that moment it hit Harry that he was about the same age as his godfather here. _This is insane._

"Well, for starters," piped up his mother-in-law, shaking him out of it, "congrats on the weddings!"

That was such an abrupt change in the conversation that Harry's eyes were the size of Dobby's before he thought to open his mouth to say thank you. He paused mid word though, as he was struck by, not the words themselves, but the tone she was saying them in. It was almost as if she wasn't sure she was going to be there, _alive,_ on the actual day; that any of them were.

_So this must be her way of asking… Oh. _His heart sank as he remembered the image of Molly Weasley sobbing in front of a Boggart taking the mutilated forms of her dead family. He couldn't imagine the torture she must be in... Well, actually, he could.

He was a dad now, and had to screw his eyes shut to fight off the imageries of James, Lily, and Albus broken and bloodied, their eyes empty and devoid of life.

Behind closed eyes, played a montage of eyes, all of their eyes, hollow and empty.

_Lupin and Tonks's, side by side facing the Great hall's starry ceiling. Fred, the echo of his final laugh permanently etched across his face. Little Colin Creevy, he was so tiny in death. Dobby, glassy green eyes reflecting his own at Shell Cottage. Dumbledore's electric blue eyes, normally so piercing with the suggestions of a million ideas behind him, rolling back into his head as he fell from the Astronomy Tower. Cedric, the first time he had seen death, mindless, unnecessary death. Sirius's wide with shock as he tumbled back into the veil and disappeared, just like that. So many others, bodies lined up in the Great Hall after the battle like broken playthings._

_Do I tell them? Can I tell them? _That tension was shared between the four of them, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny; Teddy as well to a lesser extent, but he was too stunned seeing his parents for the first time. Harry kept looking for some signal from one of the others to speak, but either they were lost, or had reached the same conclusion as he.

This was his responsibility, his fault, all of it.

As Ginny and Hermione made some idle chat that they all knew was simply stalling, he resisted the urge to punch something, or strangle himself, or _something!_

There was an almost palpable wall between them, preventing them from saying a word on who had died. But it wouldn't last long, they all knew the real reason the kids were out of the room. Speaking of whom, was it only Harry's imagination, or could he hear the faintest whispers outside the door? Before he could ponder this further though, Sirius cleared his throat and Harry could feel the inner wall begin to crumble.

"Don't think I haven't seen how you've been looking at us, Harry. I know being thrown twenty years into the past is a shock, but if that was it you wouldn't look like as... _startled_," his godfather finally settled on a word, _probably an understatement, I most likely look a mess right now,_ "as you do right now. So…" now he was just dancing around the words they all knew were coming.

"Look, Harry. I know you, and I like to think I still do. The way you're looking at me, _all_ of you, like I'm a ghost. Sure, I've haven't been looking my best recently…but still," he said this with a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. "And, I'm not quite sure how to put this, but… From your reactions upon seeing us, I'm guessing not all of us are _alive_ in twenty two years?" Harry didn't show it, but he took it like a blow to the stomach. His godfather was looking for answers, answers he was afraid to get, and that Harry was afraid to give.

"Namely, me. In twenty two years, I'm going to be dead, and it's going to happen soon." Sirius's expression said, 'I get it, it's a war people die. Just give me an answer and I will accept it. ' But that was only at first glance, deep in the farthest corner of his eye was something Harry wasn't sure Sirius himself was aware of; that tiniest, so very _human_ fear of death. And that was what made Harry hesitate.

But that gaze, and this man, these _people, _whom he'd never gotten to repay and never even gotten to say goodbye to in several cases; he _owed _them. He owed them his life, he owed them his family (_were _his family, really) and he owed them an answer. Harry's mouth had apparently made the decision before his head, because the half-baked words just tumbled out before he could do anything about it.

"I'm afraid so."

Then the door flew open, "_**No**_!"

* * *

"Harry! Harry calm down!" he wasn't sure who said it, but fifteen year old Harry Potter was positive they couldn't _possibly_ expect that of him.

Sirius, Sirius was dying. Sirius was going to die. He himself from twenty two years in the future, Harry, had just said it, three small words confirming his worst nightmare.

Harry's heart wasn't sinking; it had exploded and left him with nothing but cold coursing through his veins. He was lucky there was some small fraction of his mind making sense, otherwise he may have broken the Underage Magic Laws and magicked the door open. He really didn't need the Ministry to have another excuse to arrest him, and if a Ministry official witnessed the scene spread out in front of them right now… Harry didn't even want to consider the consequences. So instead of using his wand, he went with _much_ subtler option of loudly _kicking_ the door open.

_No, no, no, no, no, no;_ the word ran through his head in an endless sequence to the point where it no longer sounded like a word, only an indistinct syllable that was the mantra of how he felt right then. Apparently it came spilling from his mouth too, because he could hear his own voice (_he, fifteen year old Harry's, not his thirty-seven year old counterpart's) _muttering it, or possibly screaming it, he couldn't tell.

He could barely hear a thing behind his own screeching thoughts and pounding heart. A heart which now felt like it was pumping white-hot electricity instead of blood. In this haze he felt someone with a hand on his shoulder, presumably trying to hold him back; but they needn't have bothered since he didn't know what he planned to do anyway. There was ice seeping into his soul and empty denials floating through his head for the second time in that night, as well as a steady chant of _no's. _

Grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him out of this stupor was Sirius himself. Harry's mind was so enveloped in the concept of his godfather's death that he half expected to find a pearly white ghost in his place.

"It's okay," Sirius said hoarsely, "Listen to me Harry, it's _okay."_

"_Okay?" _he shot back incredulously, "_How- how is it okay_? How is _anything _going to be okay?"

He wanted to lash out, he wanted to burst with the icy electric fire filling him, and most of all he wanted _answers. _ How? When? How long do I have left with him? The question piercing his overwhelmed heart the most was one he doubted anyone could ever answer, no matter if he searched for it his entire life. _Why?_

For several agonizing seconds he was fed nothing but tense silence. And in that silence his excruciating pain dulled into confusion and a steady throbbing ache that pulsed with his heartbeat. "_Well?!"_ he prompted_. _

Sirius spoke first to his older self, "How does it happen? my death, I mean."

Older Harry's voice was nearly a croak, thick with emotion in comparison to the emptiness that resided in teenage Harry. _Hollow and empty, the perfect words to describe me right now. _"Bellatrix, in battle, at the Ministry."

Sirius's face was a blank unreadable page as he considered it, "Could be worse, I suppose. It's better than dying of boredom in here at least."

Harry was pale, and angry, and… confused. _How is he taking this so calmly?! _

Just as he thought this, Sirius spoke up as if reading his mind, "You know why I'm okay with this? Because _you _are going to be okay."

"_Okay?!_" teenage Harry fought the urge to punch something; it didn't feel like anything was ever going to be _okay_ ever again, "The world thinks I'm crazy, everyone expects me to act like an adult but treating me like I'm a toddler, _Dumbledore_ apparently thinks I'm a six-year-old," he panted for breath. "Suddenly _they _show up," he gestured vaguely towards Adult Harry, "and I get the news I'm getting married, and having kids, and supposed to defeat bloody _Voldemort._" Every insecurity and frustration he'd been feeling all summer that had only increased that day came spilling out as he ranted to his godfather. "Y_ou're __**dying! **_And judging from what _he's_ doing it was _my fault!_ And you expect me to be _okay?_"

He turned onto his adult self who looked like he had just been slapped, "_It is, isn't it?!_ Who else?! Who else is dying because of me?!" he screamed his throat out, hot tears blurring his vision. Inside, unseen to everyone else, he just _broke_, _I'm not okay, I'm anything __but __okay, _he thought turning back to Sirius, "I need you here, I-I _can't_ be alone again"

"The thing is, Harry, you're _not_ alone." It was future Ginny, red hair, dim lighting and red-rimmed eyes making her look somewhat otherworldly in Harry's eyes.

Future Ron piped up next, "Yeah, do you really think you ever _possibly _be alone? You could be on bloody _Mars_ and we'd still be there," the eye roll that followed was part exasperated part teasing. "Do we honestly have to keep telling you that?" he was looking at both present and future Harry's as he said so.

Future Harry looked somewhat lighter as he spoke, "Yeah, I think you might," there was trace of sarcasm, but for the most part his words seemed genuine. Teenage Harry caught him looking at his future kids with an expression full of both worry and hope. It was an expression that Harry could only describe as parental. _He_- _no wait_, _I really do love them, don't I?_

As somewhat better as his thirty seven year old self seemed to be feeling, his teenage self was anything _but_ satisfied. Apparently that wasn't a fact that escaped either Sirius or his future self who turned his attention onto Sirius as well. "Look over there," Sirius quietly commanded prompting him towards the door by which By which Present Ginny, Ron, Hermione, as well as James, Lily, Albus, Rose, Hugo, and Teddy stood. "What do you see?"

Present Harry only stared back at him quizzically. "What _I _see," continued Sirius, "is your family, every person in this room cares about you. You call that alone? See the kids over there? Well, I don't know about you but I think they look pretty well brought up to me, and that's going to be because of you. He-," Sirius paused and nodded his head towards Future Harry. "-looks like a pretty good dad to me." Teenage Harry glanced over at his future self and found a slightly abashed grin developing there. Looking squarely at them both, Sirius continued, "I think your parents would be proud. Lily and James, they'd be flattered to hear about those names."

"James Sirius," added Future Harry quietly, "His full name's James Sirius."

"Really?" asked Sirius looking incredulous, "Named after two Marauders, bet Filch didn't like that," the expression on Future Harry's face quite clearly, said 'Oh, no he most definitely didn't.' The two of them shared a bit of a grin.

Turning back to Teenage Harry, Sirius continued, "What I'm trying to get at Harry is that life goes on. There are going to be scars; war is hard, lives are lost," the lightheartedness that had briefly been present had gave way to grim regret. " You already know that and unfortunately it's something you're probably going to have to deal with even more. But you're strong, you are going to move on and end this war. I'm not sure how, but you're going to do it. It's going to be you somehow, I can tell, and personally I'm not all too surprised. You're going to find that girl over there," at this mention of Ginny, Teenage Harry went more than a little red. "-Start that family over there" (Teenage Harry went even _more_ red) " Live a good full life, and you're going to do it _without _me. I'm going to fancy a guess and say it's gonna hurt when I die. That's what grief does, you've lost so much, and you're going to miss me. Hopefully I'm not just flattering myself when I say you'll miss me. After all, who wouldn't?" Sirius made a weak stab at a joke. "But you are going to live a good life and right now, we've got to get you back to it."

Future Harry regarded him as if still not quite sure he was real, "Thank you, Sirius. For _everything,_" those five words held so much emotion, Teenage Harry could just barely scratch the surface of all that gratitude.

"So, let's get home shall we?" Harry could sense his future self was in all out planning mode, features lit up with instinct and green eyes filled with the amount of thoughts one would've expected from only Hermione.

But before he could continue, he was hesitantly cut off by Lupin, "Before we start a plan, I think I need to talk about something… Teddy?"

* * *

Teddy Remus Lupin was panicking. He wasn't doing so quite as visibly as his father, but most definitely he was freaking out.

His parents were here. His living, breathing, and very much _alive _parents were here. The experience was made even more jarring by the fact he'd been to their graves only yesterday.

He'd been with his Gran of course. She spoke little of his late grandfather and parents. It wasn't that she didn't want him to know about them; it was that it was too painful a subject for her. Most of what he knew about them was from Harry and all the other former Order members. They always made it firmly understood that Remus John Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks were great, courageous, people who died to make the world a better place. His questions were always welcomed, especially by his godfather Harry, but there was only so much he could get from asking mere questions.

There were many facts about two of them that he had always just accepted. It was just another part of his life, for better or worse, even though many others found those facts strange.

He'd always known his mother was a Metamorphmagus, like him.

He'd always accepted the fact his father had been a werewolf.

He'd always known and accepted that they were both dead.

They were all topics that occasionally either got him picked on at school, or made him interesting to other people; either way he usually stood out. But he didn't mind that, he was used to sticking out. After all, his hair was bright blue, he could change his appearance at will, he was half werewolf, and his godfather was the reluctantly famous 'Chosen One, Vanquisher of Voldemort, Boy-Who-Lived (and about a billion other titles Harry didn't care about)' Harry Potter. Sticking out a bit? No problem.

Harry was the most helpful whenever their deaths affected him. He'd grown up without parents too, and provided guidance whenever it was necessary, "I'm your godfather; it's my job. Besides I owe it to your parents," he'd said. One of the highest compliments he'd heard from the Potter-Weasley-Granger-Tonks-Lupin- whatever else, clan that made up his family was that he was just like his parents.

Teddy had never imagined that when the six of them went exploring into the Department of Mysteries (what could he say? It was a once in a lifetime chance. Only top level officials were permitted access and that was only under special circumstances. _Teddy_ was only in the beginning stages of Auror training, and the kids were, _well, _the kids, there was no stopping them) he would end up meeting said dead parents.

When he'd first seen their faces, he'd known. He had grown up knowing what they'd looked like; Harry had made him an album filled with every single picture he could find. That shade of bright pink was one he had only seen one place, and the tired air given off by Remus matched Harry's description perfectly. No matter how impossible it seemed, he was 99% certain it was them; he just needed to hear it.

"Harry, that's-that's _them _isn't it?" the nod that followed, he was too stunned to say anything. _Damn, this- this is actually happening_.

Later, when the time for introductions had come, he cut Harry off in his hasty introduction. _He_ needed to do this. Teddy hadn't really known what to expect from their reactions. At his Mum's he tried his hardest to not burst into tears, or laughter, or follow in Ron's footsteps and just faint. His Dad's terror, he supposed, was completely rational, _meeting your future kids isn't something that happens every day_, but Teddy had a feeling there was more to it than just that.

Then he remembered a story from Harry; his dad was a werewolf and had been _terrified_ of passing that burden down to his child. Nearly walked out on his mum because of that fear; Harry had forced him back to her, (Teddy noted his godfather looked pained and a little guilty at this part of the tale) and then later of course, Battle of Hogwarts- their deaths.

'I'm not a werewolf' he had been aching to say that all night, alleviate his dad's worries. But one thing led to another and he hadn't had the opportunity… until now.

"I think we need to talk about something… Teddy?" his father had just spoken directly to him for the first time in memory and his heart leapt.

"Yeah…_dad_?" Teddy formed the word carefully, mouth still getting used to saying it, brain getting used to using it at someone, heart getting used to that someone _being there._

"I know we have things to do right now, and I hate holding us back but…" his father teetered on the edge of the question, knowing the answer could confirm his worst nightmare. Fear and a need to know fought a battle in Remus Lupin's eyes. _I could just tell him now, I don't need to wait for the question. _But Teddy could tell, his father needed to prove himself, needed to ask it himself.

Suddenly that fear gave out, and his dad spoke, "Teddy, are you a werewolf?" he waited for the answer with bated breath.

"No, no I'm not. Senses are kinda weird, and sometimes I'm a bit moody 'round the full moon. But I am _not_ a werewolf."

Relief flooded every feature on his dad's face as he buried it in his hands. "Oh thank God." The silence was short-lived though, as he immediately jumped up and turned to Tonks.

"Dora, Dora, Dora, Dora, why pick me? You know what I am, you deserve better than _this_" he exasperatedly gestured towards himself. "How did I let myself put you in that much risk?" he frustratedly asked himself.

Teddy found his mother standing defiantly beside him and looking his dad squarely in the eye, "Remus! _You_ know I think _this"_ she mimicked his self-depreciating gesture at him, "is a wonderful, brave person, who is being _ridiculous_! I don't care! I know what you are, and evidently you someday are going to get it into your head that I don't care about that. I care about _you." _

Teddy felt pretty awkward, _Oh, so this is what Victorie means when she says 'like watching your parents make out… _He thought, referring to Victorie Weasley, his best friend and a phrase she often used to describe awkward situations.

"There's something else bothering me…" Tonks mumbled, "but it can wait." She beamed at Teddy and the awkward tension lessened dramatically giving way to thoughts of _they're actually here and don't hate me! _

Remus took a long look at him and in that moment, the weariness flickered giving way to a tiny flash of hope. "We'll talk about this later. Sorry for interrupting -like that," he turned to Adult Harry, "I just needed to ask. It's … nice to meet you Teddy." The expression on his father's face reminded Teddy vaguely of a carefully turtle inching its way out of its shell. He wasn't sure, but he got the impression those five last words were a courageous first step.

"No problem, Remus" Adult Harry nodded understandingly, and Teddy registered a flash of surprise on the teenaged version of his godfather's face at calling his former professor by his first name. "Teddy… you okay?" he received a nod in reply, "Well then, planning time."

Adult Harry's face adopted an interesting expression, like he was making a decision he knew would cause an uproar but was absolutely necessary.

" Okay, first of all I'm sorry, I know I can't speak for any of your children, but I know that mine and younger me are definitely _not_ coming."

"_Oh you have_ got to be kidding me!"

Yep, definitely an uproar following.

* * *

**A/N Hello all, and happy thanksgiving if you celebrate it. I'm really sorry if that was terrible, I'm in a bit of a funk (on a sidenote, that is a strange word)... Sorry if that all came off as a bit cheesy, angst isn't my strong suit and I've never tried writing Tonks/Lupin before. A bit frustrated with this chapter, but your thoughts? Actually kept my promise, it _was_ longer! Thank you as always for reading, and faving, and following. Please review, I'm begging. I'd also like to know if you think this story should move faster, plot-wise, but any thoughts would be great! **

**P.S Don't suppose anyone caught my AVPM references here? Those were actually a complete accident, I swear! Suppose you'll have to stick around to see if they're going to 'Get Back to Hogwarts' anytime soon. But really, REVIEW and you'll find out faster :)**

**P.P.S Over 100 follows thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you SO MUCH!**


	7. Double Trouble

Harry Potter and the Twist in Time

**Double Trouble**

**A/N: For all who were confused last chapter, Future Harry has just banned his kids and Present Harry from coming with them to...well I guess you're going to have to read to find out!**

"You are…kidding me!" fifteen year old Harry Potter bit back a curse (of the non-magical sort) and as he did so a voice that sounded curiously like Professor McGonagall sharply scolded, 'Potter, set a good example for your children!'

_But they're not mine... yet, _an irritating part of his brain added the last word. _Urgh, _he swatted that thought away and tried focusing on the _other_ reason he was turning beet-red. This one had more to do with outrage than embarrassment, since he had just gotten himself banned from helping the Order once again. Only this time it had been by _his future self._

If the universe was trying to send him a message, it had a very funny way of doing so.

Evidently he wasn't the only upset one; James, Lily, and Al, whom Adult Harry had also confined to Grimmauld Place, had their mouths open in preparation to protest. Future Ginny cut them off before they could start.

"I know what you're going to say," She addressed her kids and not Teenage Harry, "and I know you're not going to like hearing it, but this is way too dangerous for you. Like, worse than pet- sitting for Hagrid." This sounded very dangerous to Harry and clearly to his children as well. "You've heard the stories; you have an idea of what's going on here. Well now it's beyond bedtime stories, it's actually happening and we can't put you at that much risk." She finished with a grimace that suggested she had a vague idea of where they were headed and it wasn't going to be pleasant, possibly involving Death Eaters?

"She's right," said Mrs. Weasley, "Fred, George, Ginny, Ron," she paused and indicated she was talking to the teens and not their adult counterparts. "You aren't going anywhere, and Hermione dear," she raised her voice over her children's objections, "Same goes for you, your parents aren't here but I'm sure they'd share my sentiments." It wasn't phrased as a question but instead a statement declaring the matter closed.

Future Ron and Hermione soon followed suit in prohibiting Rose and Hugo. If seeing himself as a parent was the weirdest sight for Harry, then seeing Ron and Hermione as parents (specifically of the same children) was a close second. Tonks and Lupin also didn't buck the trend, discouraging Teddy from coming even though he was over- age.

All who was left was Teenage Harry. Sirius usually would have looked much more open to the idea of Harry coming (probably not letting him come, but at least more open to it), but perhaps it was the recent news getting him to think more on mortality, or maybe just today's special circumstances. Either way, his godfather plainly shook his head.

"But...!" Present Harry wracked his brain for some sensible argument but none came. He refused to admit it even to himself, but he was mildly exhausted. Thankfully his son James didn't seem to have the same problem. Although they were brown instead of green, his eyes held every last ounce of defiance in Present Harry's and then some. "We shouldn't split up, what if you find a way home but can't use it since we're not there? Or… something else happens?"

Lily potter's voice was laced with a surprising amount of ferocity for a nine year old, "Where are you even going? C'mon you've got to tell us where you're headed at least!"

Tonks furrowed her (currently purple) eyebrows, "She's got a point. Where _are _we going?"

"Wait," said Future Harry, "When you say _we, _you know you don't need to-"

"Don't even try Harry," said Sirius said with an eye-roll, "And don't even bring up my house arrest either, if I'm dying I might as well live a little while I've got the time."

"He's got a point mate," agreed Future Ron, "You can be as noble as you want but that's not going to stop anyone."

Future Harry sighed, but if you looked in the corners of his eyes you could see that was exactly what he'd expected and wouldn't have it any other way. "Yeah… didn't think so. Well, if we're going to get back then we need to know how we got here, and for that we need-"

"Crouch," nodded Kingsley.

"Exactly," Future Harry returned the nod, "And considering the time period we're in I'm guessing whatever we're here for has to do with Voldemort." Several of the room's occupants flinched at the name, but Harry was pleased to see the future children unfazed. "Sorry," muttered his future self, "So it's probably got to do with… You-Know-Who. Meaning that if Crouch is here then he's somewhere with the Death Eaters, so we've got to go to the person on our side that has most access to the Death Eaters..."

Future Ron, Ginny, and Hermione's eyes all clicked at once,

"Snape!"

* * *

"Wait, what d'you mean, Snape?" Present Harry beat out everyone else in asking the question.

His future self hesitated but ended up shrugging and answering anyway, they already knew this much, he supposed a bit more couldn't make it worse. "Professor Snape's situation is… complicated. He- he's spying on the Death Eaters."

_What?! But-but, how does he… why would he…. What?! _

"Wait, before you say anything," he paused before the people who wished to say something (i.e. _everyone_) could do so, "he's completely trustworthy, and has earned my utmost respect." This last bit was directed primarily towards Sirius who looked utterly gobsmacked, and Harry whose jaw had literally dropped.

_Okay am I joking or is this me from an alternate universe? Because there is NO WAY…_

His thoughts lapsed into incoherence and he recalled several occasions when he'd felt the exact _opposite _of utmost respect for Professor Severus Snape.._. _Harry saw quite clearly the expression of loathing Snape reserved especially for him and the smug sneer for whenever he made a fool of himself. _More like 'utmost' desire to slap him in the face…_

Teenage Harry would have said this aloud had it not been for Sirius beating him to it. Sirius, who had moments before expressed complete faith in Future Harry, now looked as if not sure he had proper hold of all his mental facilities.

"How…when… but," his godfather struggled for words. "What," he finally settled, "exactly did Snape _do_?

"That," said Future Harry, "is a long story." He shook his head and his eyes flicked noticeably to Present Harry's scar. His eyes left quickly, and his future self was lost in memories of a time yet to come, but Harry couldn't help but feel like the scar burned with that quick glance. "He's our best hope for finding the Death Eaters, getting to Crouch, and figuring out what's going on."

"Future Hermione sighed, "That's not much to start with."

"But it's something, and besides we've gone on less before," her husband (Harry felt odd labeling Future Ron as such) shrugged in manner that was very _Ron _and gave her a comforting smile than was slightly less _Ron. _Sensitive, that was the right word for it. "So where're we headed? Snape's house?"

Harry tried to envision the type of place where a man like Severus Snape would live. No doubt a freezing cave crawling with overgrown bats and cobwebs and pickled potion ingredients the way his classroom was. But apparently they weren't finding out, as Lupin said, "Last I heard he was heading back to Hogwarts to prepare for the coming term."

"Back to Hogwarts then?" Future Hermione said eagerly and Harry wondered what his friend did in her adult life without a dozen books slung over her shoulder at any given moment. "I mean we can't just send an owl post, too risky, and you can't-"

"Apparate on Hogwarts grounds," Future Ron finished for her and Harry could see both of their present selves raise their eyebrows at Ron actually remembering this. They quickly glanced at their future selves, then at each other going quite pink.

Meanwhile, the adults were working out the particulars of the venture. Future Ginny and Ron attempted to persuade their mum that they could all safely stay hidden ("We've been in worse scrapes than this!" which did _not_ have the desired effect of alleviating her worry.)

As they did so Harry mentally listed all who were going (all the adults save the Twins, Teddy, and Kingsley who was going to cover for Tonks at the Ministry and attempt to get hold of Dumbledore) as well as noted the curious absence of Mundungus Fletcher.

The adults picked up on this but Future Harry grimly acknowledged Fletcher was the type to run away when things got outside his comfort zone. He and Future Ron shared looks of concern but it was eventually decided they hadn't the time to search for him.

Over the din, Sirius called down Kreacher from upstairs and the house-elf came grumbling. Evidently the foul-mouthed elf was set to be their babysitter. Present Harry wanted to gouge his eyes out with his wand by this point.

"Master called Kreacher for a job sir?" his bullfrog croak dripped sarcasm from the last syllable. Just then he caught sight of the time travelers and his eyes narrowed. "Master has more… company? And more brats too…" he mumbled under his putrid breath, "What would mistress say? Blood Traitors, Half breeds, and Mudbloods the lot of them," he lamented.

"OI!" barked Sirius.

"Future Hermione frowned, "Let's not raise voices at Kreacher, shall we?" In this time Hermione was quite fixated on house-elf rights, and it looked like that wasn't fading any time soon. Sirius sighed, but _somewhat _more politely then he would've otherwise, commanded Kreacher watch over the children while they were out.

"Is she still on that _spew_ stuff?" Present Ron absentmindedly murmured.

"Yep," Future Ron answered his past self, "and it's a good bit bigger now too, I just wouldn't critique it if I were you," he shook his head not even realizing the last part of what he'd said.

"It's S.P.E.W!" said Present Hermione at them both, in what Harry thought were the first words she'd said to Ron since discovering their shared future. The teens both realized this and began focusing on the floor as if it was suddenly very important

Seeing _their_ reactions to the whole 'apparently we're getting married' thing just made him think of Ginny again. At the moment though, Present Harry's attention was thankfully diverted onto the others' valiant attempts at protest, ranging everywhere from "Splitting up _isn't _a good idea" (Rose), "We're of age!"(Twins and Teddy), and from James a curious "But you were _fifteen_when you broke into the Mini- _MMPH!"_ that last bit due to Teddy clamping a hand over his mouth, "And seventeen with Grin- alright _fine_!" And he shut up, preventing them from knowing what they'd broken into.

Every one of these protests was met with a stern 'no' from the protester's parents. Teenage Harry, Al, and James were all running their hands through their already messed up hair so it stuck up at exactly identical angles.

"Argh! But you're me!" Harry exploded at his future self, "don't you remember what this is like? We can help!"

"Yes, I do know how it feels, but sometimes the results of us wanting to run into action aren't good," his adult self shot back and glanced at Sirius. "You're fifteen, barely, and you don't know all the risks, haven't seen all the consequences." A curious mournful look at Fred, "We don't know what's going on and until we do you are all staying here."

_Consequences, more of them, like Sirius. That's what I mean isn't it? No time to think about it now…_ Or at least that's what he told himself

Spying the time, it was decided they best try for some sleep. Sirius for one looked pleased at the prospect of having the place so full for once. Given the fact he had just learned of his own death, he looked positively delighted. Kingsley set for the Ministry, the majority of the adults were left to nervously pace about the living room, and the kids were reluctantly shooed upstairs. At the first landing they bid a brief and sullen good night to Lily, Rose, Hermione, and Ginny. Then Harry, Ron, Al, James, and Hugo ducked into a room at the next stop, leaving the Twins and Teddy (mumbling most suspiciously) to continue on to the next floor.

At first they simply hung around awkwardly and the only sounds were of Hedwig and Pigwidgeon rustling about their cages.

"So no miracle plan this time?" asked Ron (who without Hermione present had faded to a much lighter pink).

Al sighed, "I was hoping you'd have one." Al looked curiously at Hedwig like he'd never seen her before. _Then again he probably hasn't, owls don't live forever, _Present Harry thoughtsadly.

James checked his pockets, "Weasley's Whizzbangers, Fever Fudge, Disapparation Silencer..."he shifted through many other assorted pranking products. "Nope, nothing helpful,"

"What do we do now then?" asked Hugo.

"Think? Hope the girls or the Twins, or Teddy figure something out?" shrugged Al. But even if the others had a plan how would they get it through to them? No doubt once the adults departed for Hogwarts… however they were doing it, Kreacher would be grudgingly patrolling the hall.

James flopped onto a bed and promptly chucked a pillow at his brother's head.

"What was that for?" Al cried defensively.

"For giving up," James shot at him.

"That's still not a reason to throw things at me! Besides it's _your_ fault we're here in the first place."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're the one who got us to go into that Department in the first place!"

"I never said you needed to-"

"Enough," the word slipped out of Harry's mouth before he'd realized it. "Arguing's not going to help to help. If no one's got ideas you might as well sleep," he said evenly.

"Fine Dad," they groaned in unison and James resumed his ceiling staring.

_Dad… _the one word made him choke, and right after looking at Ron, the pair of them glanced at their sons with dual expressions of disbelief.

Eventually there came a telltale bang of a door signaling the adults had all left, and they all lay on their backs staring at the ceiling. The heavy breathing reminded Harry of his dorm room at Hogwarts. He wondered if his future self was there now, and who occupied it in their time. Come to think of it, he hadn't thought to think what houses the kids were all in, Al was only eleven, was he at Hogwarts yet?

Harry yawned, and admonished himself for not focusing on a plan. But even as he did this, his mind wandered and eyes slowly began to drift.

_No, planning time….gotta… stay…up. _His mind blurred and was wracked with images of scarlet eyes laughing over Sirius's body, then Dumbledore towering over him before placing him back into a cage, next was red hair accompanied by brown eyes and a familiar flowery scent. Finally, third year, falling backwards into time… no wait, now he was…in a park, spooked by a massive black dog. Suddenly there was tons of light, blinding him, and a vast expanse of purple, with wheels underneath. A…bus?

Harry's eyes snapped open and he shot up with a gasp. _That's it!_

"Guys I've got a plan!"

"Wuzzgoinon?" mumbled Hugo, and Al and Ron rubbed their eyes blearily. James on the other hand was glowing like a lightbulb.

"What is it?"

"The Knight Bus."

"Oh, good Harry," rang a voice from the shadows startling them all, "You got something, because well, we had nothing," they stepped out, it was Fred. He grinned, "Now who's got any extra stuff we can use for a diversion?"

James grinned.

* * *

Fourteen year old Ginny Weasley was used to unusual events, but even by her standards this was an interesting day. First there was waking up in the secret headquarters (owned by a convicted mass murderer) of a secret society headed by her school headmaster. Then there was being screamed at by a lunatic painting and receiving a death-glare from a similarly cracked house-elf. After that the day passed in being served levitating toast for breakfast, cleaning, and watching her brothers turn one another into canaries.

Until came that matter of her thirty-six year old self showing up from the future with three children in tow whose father was Harry Potter. So, now she was in a room with one of said children, Lily, Hermione Granger, and Rose Weasley, her future niece. The experience was very…interesting.

"They're not just leaving us are they?!" moaned Lily, her nine year old daughter of the future.

"Apparently they are…" trailed off Rose biting her lip.

"I don't like this," Rose and Hermione both said at once.

They had been talking the situation over for a while now when the Twins had Apparated into the room, quickly followed by Teddy Lupin. "Take my hand and be quiet, we're in a hurry and there's only so long this can last."

Hermione frowned, "_What _can last?" suddenly there came a crash downstairs and a scream from what only could have been Kreacher. Then Sirius's mother started.

"That," Teddy replied, "Now go!"

All of a sudden there came a strange sensation of being compressed into a bendy straw and the world started spinning, then it came to a halt and Ginny felt very dizzy. So were Hermione, Lily, and Rose, it seemed who were doubled over.

"Urgh," said Lily, "What just happened?"

"Apparation," answered Hermione through gritted teeth, "What I'm wondering is what caused that crash…"

"Fireworks," replied James Potter, who stood in front of them and she saw that they were now in front of Grimmauld Place rather than inside it. "Or _a _firework I should say, caused a distraction so we could sneak out."

Ginny's eyes widened, "You lit a firework in Grimmauld Place?"

"Only one," her future son assured her, "it's a mild one so don't worry. Just enough to keep Kreacher occupied until we're far enough so he can't alert the parents."

"Where're we going? Hogwarts?"

"Yep," added in Present Harry. Ginny jumped, she hadn't noticed him there before.

"How? More Apparating?" Ginny's stomach turned at the thought.

"Thankfully no,"

"How then?"

This question was answered by their other future son Al, who simply gave a nod of his head towards where a giant purple triple-decker-bus, the side of which was transcribed with 'The Knight Bus' was sitting. "That," he said simply.

"Oh, that," Present Ginny shrugged quickly, _Sure, why not? Time travel, future children, and now a magic bus, _she thought and watched Harry disappear hurriedly beneath… an invisibility cloak? Presumably so he wouldn't be recognized by the driver. She followed his invisible footsteps up the ramp into the bus, and listened as Teddy (whose hair was now a grey specked brown and on the whole looked a good bit older) fed the acne-ridden conductor, named Stan, a story that he and his 'nieces and nephews' required a trip to Hogsmeade to meet up with their parents. Stan narrowed his eyes at the sight of Al and wondered aloud whether, 'Arry Potter' was boarding the bus once again, but was satisfied at Al's scarlessness and bade them in

Money was exchanged; they all hesitated a bit (especially Rose and Hermione), but ultimately they all ended up settling down onto a bed and awaiting their departure. As they did this she noticed her and Harry's and Ron and Hermione's children grouping up and whispering conspiratorially, occasionally sneaking amazed glimpses at their teenage parents who in turn were looking at them. Teddy gazed out the window, eyes changing color with every blink.

Conversation between the past and present was sparse as both groups were nervous in each other's' presence. And besides, the past people were barely talking amongst themselves. With the exception of the twins (who were chatting enthusiastically with James) they were spread out in the still unmoving bus. Ron and Hermione were seated uncomfortably across each other in the aisles, and Harry she couldn't see, though thought she could sense in the window seat beside Ron.

_Harry Potter._ Her rescuer at age eleven at the darkest point of her life, the one she couldn't believe she was seeing during their first chance meeting at King's Cross, unfortunate victim of her bad first-year poetry writing skills whose eyes were 'green as a fresh pickled toad.'

Not to mention future father of three, husband of one. _Yeah, me. _

As the engine revved, Ginny Weasley thought things over. Her result? She was confused. As Hermione had advised, she was moving on, and so far that was going well (at least it resulted in less Ginny blushing darker than her hair whenever they were within eyeshot of each other) but there was no denying Harry was special. Only now she'd received early news that the two of them ended up together and she had no clue what to do. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but feelings were hard enough without the fabric of the universe messing with it.

Just then Stan called out, "'Ere we go everyone, hold on to your 'ats," and the bus shot off like a rocket. They dashed and weaved between Muggle lampposts and mailboxes, cars and homes, and as the trip wore on, the picturesque rooftops of Hogsmeade village.

"'Ere we are ladies and gents, Hogsmeade!" he finished and they dizzily began to step out the bus, "Oi, you!" he squinted at Al, "you _sure _you's not related to 'Arry Potter?"

"Al only smiled, "I think I'd know if I was," he answered cryptically before exiting.

Once the bus departed with a magical _CRACK! _They looked around, sure enough, here they were. Hogsmeade, Hogwarts easily within view illuminated by the now rising sun which barely peeked over the horizon. The future people stared at the castle and the village with wide eyes.

"So this is what it looked like!" said Rose who had evidently inherited her mother's ardent curiosity

"Hasn't changed a bit, this place," noted James.

"We wouldn't know," said Lily enviously, "you and Teds are the only ones who've been remember? I've still got two years, Hugo's got three, and Al and Rose have got another month."

"Three weeks and six days…" Al corrected quietly in a tone that suggested he probably knew the hours and minutes as well.

"Well, what are we waiting 'round here for? Let's go!" shouted James who started running (alarming Teddy who was staring at the Shrieking Shack).

Present Ginny, Ron, Hermione and Harry, gazed openmouthed at their children and Teddy who were dashing towards the castle at breakneck speeds. They might have remained there had it not been for Hugo, who looked over his shoulder and called, "Mum! Dad! Uncle Harry! Aunt Ginny! What are you waiting for? C'mon!"

At him calling Ron and Hermione 'mum and dad', Fred smirked and nudged Ron's shoulder who shot him a glare and muttered, "Git." Meanwhile George winked at Ginny who mouthed 'Shut up!' The universe then chose that _wonderfully_ inconvenient moment to have Harry come pass in front of her and fill her line of vision. She shoved away her thoughts, and together they all ran to the castle.

Unknown to her, or indeed anyone else, there were _two_ Harry Potters near Hogwarts that day with the same two things on their mind. The first being Ginny Weasley, and the second being their mysterious future

* * *

**A/N: Sorry for the confusion and the wait. Also sorry if the ending sucked ****or you know, the whole thing sucked), because I'm kinda sick today but I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer. Hope I got my canon details right, wasn't sure if Ginny knew about the Invisibilty Cloak yet, or how how the Trace really works, or whether they could've just Side-Along Apparated to Hogsmeade (for an explanation, umm, Maybe there's an anti-Apparation charm like Hogwarts? Just Apparating felt too easy), sorry if I'm wrong. Also decided this is set sometime AFTER Harry's hearing at the Ministry and the future people are from about a month before the epilogue.**

** Thoughts? Any POV's you want to hear? More Ron/Hermione? Less Ron/Hermione? Tonks/Lupin? Harry/Ginny? Anything?! ****Thanks as always for following, reading, faving... *122 followers!* AHHH! THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH! Review? Please?!**

**P.S Happy Holidays People! **

**P.P.S Alright, I'm off to go listen to the 'A Very Potter Senior Year' soundtrack on YouTube...again. Anyone else excited? :D**


	8. Poisoned Honey

Harry Potter and the Twist in Time

**Poisoned Honey**

James Sirius Potter was enjoying today a _little_ bit more than he should be. Rose often accused him of not having his priorities straight. The fact he wasn't all too worried about the fact they were teenagers/children/ really young adults, the majority of whom could not do magic without getting arrested, wandering alone about twenty years in the past, was proof she was correct.

Weeeeeell, alright, in the beginning? Scared. But once they'd gotten their bearings that all faded, and James Sirius Potter was a perfectly fine brave and valiant Gryffindor, not afraid _at all. _Or at least that's what he told himself. This was evidenced by the fact he was half- sprinting, half-skipping his way through Hogsmeade, rejoicing at how completely mental everything was.

Because when you're dealing with James Sirius Potter, 'mental' is the perfect word to describe everything. And 'completely mental' is the perfect one for his family.

Speaking of his family…They weren't looking at each other and Teenage Mum was being almost silent. James knew better than anyone that 'Ginny Potter' and 'silent' are not words you ever find together without a negative in between. _Oh yeah, that reminds me…_she definitely wouldn't be silent if/when she found where they were. That was not a bridge he would enjoy crossing, and they would take no excuses.

This was really a shame, because his family had supplied them all with the largest archive of 'But you did it!' excuses in the history of forever. (The number of times he'd used 'At least I haven't broken into Gringotts!' in his prominent troublemaking career was innumerable.) Really, he was older than Dad when he'd defeated a _basilisk_ and hardly younger than his Mum when she helped break into the Ministry!

The story, recounted in class by Neville – ahem, Professor Longbottom, to some admiring students included six of them dashing out of Hogwarts, escaping the most horrible nightmare of a teacher (_Dolores…something_, thought James), running from centaurs, flying on threstrals, and breaking into the Ministry fully expecting Voldemort and a gang of Death Eaters.

He was muttering this under his breath to a not-really-listening Hugo, but once he'd gotten to the part mentioning Neville his parents had caught up and he was cut off.

"Wait what was that about Neville?" said confused Present Mum, "And why was he having you repot Mandrakes? Actually…where did he _get_ Mandrakes?"

"School greenhouse of course, where else?" _obviously,_ James thought but didn't say. He was bewildered to look up a second later and find the present people more confused than before.

Lily sighed heavily and rolled her eyes, "James, think you forgot to mention something…"

_What does she-"_Oh, that!"

"Uh-huh," chimed in a smirking Al, using the tone of one talking to a very small child.

James chose to _ignore_ this, "He's the Herbology professor," James explained, "And a brilliant one at that." Suddenly the present people's faces lost expressions turned to those of shock and surprise.

Such was the case with Present Ron whose immediate first words after were, "Neville? _Longbottom_? You're sure?" the sentiment seemed to be echoed to everyone else, but they just didn't say anything.

Except for Fred, who jokingly (but with no ill intent) quipped, "In the greenhouses? Have they shattered yet?"

That last one put a slight grin to Teddy's face (who'd been quite space-y since talking to his parents), "Not quite, I came close once though. Tripped over a shovel and sent a potted Fanged Geranium into one of the walls," he continued absentmindedly. "Nearly sprained a wrist, Vic wouldn't stop laughing at me for a week when she heard, and Gran too, kept telling me I was clumsier than my-"Teddy trailed off here abashedly.

James had a feeling it had to do with Teddy and his newfound parents, but made no comment. He did have some tact, how else would always know how to look like he had none? The group descended into relative silence, but Present Mum broke it before it crossed the line into 'unbearably awkward.' "

Who's Vic, friend of yours?" Teddy nodded, and James suspiciously noted a light blush on the Metamorphmagus's face, Ted, being well acquainted with the Potter kids' exceptional observation skills tried covering this up by going with a skin tone paler than death. It didn't work.

"She's our cousin," said Hugo, also looking suspicious "Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur's-"

"Aunt WHO?" said Present Dad, Ron, and Hermione. Their expressions coupled with the fact all the future Potter- Weasley children were now squinting at Teddy, did not help the awkward air. Present Hermione picked up on this, composed herself…and then proceeded to panic, blurting out the first question to come to mind.

"Do you, um, go to Hogwarts together then?" she stumbled, still wrapping her head around 'Aunt Fleur.'

Still comically paler than a skeleton, Teddy rapidly answered, "No, I'm not at Hogwarts anymore, she is though. And, um, hey, _look_ the castle!" The castle had been towering over them ever since they'd gotten there, so Teddy pointing it out now told James nothing except that he _really _wanted to change the subject. Anybody acquainted with the Weasley Twins kne this was never ging to happen.

"Aunt Fleur huh? Looks like the 'ze Eenglish lessons' worked out well for Bill then," George said in what was the worst faked accent James had ever heard (and he'd heard his dad try being Scottish, so he knew what he was talking about) "If you've got a thing for our niece," (Teddy choked here) "Then maybe we're in for a bit of a talk. Eh, Forge?"

Fred spoke, "You know Gred, we might wanna have a little chat with Harrykins while we're at it then," he winked at James's mortified parents.

Suddenly the twins, who were now far ahead of everyone else, came to a stop.

Hugo and Ron were confused, "What we stopping for?"

"Well we're not just waltzing in through the front door, are we? And we can't-" said Hermione.

"Apparate into Hogwarts, so obviously we're going through some secret passage into the castle instead," finished Rose. The future family of four all stared at each other. Looking over his shoulder James found his dad and Al barely restraining laughter.

"But seriously," said Al recovering, "if we're going into a secret passage then where is it? And why are we in front of…" he squinted at the sign, "Honeydukes?"

James lit up, he knew this passage! _But, wait a second…."_We're breaking into Honeydukes?"

"Yep!" said George, "Now hush everyone, we don't wanna wake anybody up." _Breaking into Honeydukes in the middle of the night twenty years in the past. One checked off the Life Goals list. _

Al was still confused, but worked out what was going on quick enough. Just in time, in fact, since Teddy had his wand in hand and was muttering a quiet 'Alohomora!'

He leaned forward in anticipation _and…_ the lock did nothing.

Teddy sighed in response, "Of course, Anti-Alohomora Charm."

"What are you going to do now then?" asked Ron.

"Take advantage of the fact I'm from the future, and that I've been through enough Auror training to have this hammered into my head." James watched as Teddy did some complicated loopy, wand motion and whispered a spell he couldn't hear. _So the past people can't hear it? Or so I can't? _(They seemed equally likely) And slowly, he heard the lock mechanism move itself and the door pop open with a faint _click_.

Teddy breathed a sigh of relief, "Thanks Hermione."

"For what?"

"Inventing that spell, eventually."

"Oh?"

"As much as we love watching you nerd over spells," piped up James, "we're kinda busy with something."

They both nodded understandingly (if a bit ticked off at the _nerd _comment) and quietly followed the others into the shop. They crept through, delicately dodging boxes and displays of sweets set out in ready for the coming school term. James spied a staircase in the back corner of the room. And even in the very dim lighting, the candies screamed florescent color, popping brightly like fireworks in the shadows.

James didn't really need to focus on being sneaky (that was a natural talent) so he let his eyes wander over the shelves. The Honeydukes merchandise hadn't changed too much, but there were some notable absences (seeing a magical candy store that didn't stock a _single _Skiving Snackbox was almost bizarre) and a few sweets he'd never seen before. _Acid Pops, huh, so many __possibilities__… _James thought, Rose caught his staring and mouthed 'No looting!'

He snapped to attention and did his best to say 'I wasn't going to do anything!' (a total lie) 'what are you a Legimens?' through miming. Then his (very bad) miming act was interrupted as his hand came in contact with something. A something that then fell to the ground and crashed with a soft but very audible _clink_.

Were there not parents in the room and a need to stay silent, James would've said many things, none of them pleasant (or family friendly).

It got worse when they heard the shuffling of feet overhead, the owners of the shop making their way downstairs.

James's mind came up with a plethora of words that would've made even Peeves blush.

His hand was snatched up in the darkness and he nearly jumped, but it was just Lily. Running. The sliding of a trapdoor panel, it slamming shut. A Passageway. Everyone remained silent, hardly daring to _breathe _too heavily, as they leaped down stone steps and wriggled down a twisty narrow hallway. Finally, _light_. James looked up to find his wrist clasped in Lily's, hers in Al's, Al's in Present Mum's and hers in Present Dad's(the two of them let go very quickly). Fred and George seemed to have guided the rest.

He wasn't claustrophobic but James was happier than he'd like to admit when they swung open the witch's hump and crawled out one by one. Lily, Rose, Al, and Hugo looked up at the ceiling with barely contained excitement. _Hogwarts! They'd actually done it!_

"Is everybody alright?" said Present Dad looking for all the world as concerned as his thirty seven year old self would.

'Fine's and nods all around the room. "And _yes _we're sure," said Al, cutting off his dad's inevitable follow up question. "But so much for being discreet _James_" he said, quarrel from earlier not yet completely forgotten.

"We came here in a magical purple bus," James scoffed, "I think we left 'discreet' a long time ago. Stabbed it off a cliff actually."

"Okay then," said Present Hermione hesitantly, "Should we, er, look for Dumbledore now then?" It occurred to James then that they hadn't put too much thought into what to do _after _they got here. To be honest it was a minor miracle they'd made it this far.

Present Harry didn't look too thrilled with the idea. "Well…"

_Dumbledore? _Thought James, _like, goat fanatic or 'Dumbledore's Army'/ Al's namesake? _Then it occurred to him that unless they needed a goat chariot or something it was probably Al's genius namesake.

Moments later James was no longer thinking about goat chariots nor anything else along those lines, because Teddy was snatching his Dad's invisibility cloak and tossing in over Al and Present Harry in one quick fluid motion. James knew Teddy was ironically bad at transfiguring others' appearances and Disillusionment Charms. When Teddy looked up again, his hair was gray specked and he'd adopted what James called his, 'serious and responsible adult' atmosphere went from tentative to urgent in less than a second. The Potter Weasleys had learned long ago that Teddy's wolfish instincts were usually to be trusted and this was no exception. Because a few seconds later, came footsteps.

From one side of the corridor, disembodied footsteps revealed two seconds later to be none other than Nymphadora Tonk's. Though they were hidden, cramped behind a statue that showed only the tops of their heads, it didn't take long to identify the kids. "Teddy? Is that-What are you doing here? "

"Tonks!" came the call from down the same way she'd come, "Did you find something? Dumbledore?"

"You could say that," she breathed as Teddy flickered back into his usual looks. The rest of the adults came scrambling down and caught sight of them almost instantly. The results weren't pretty. There were three Potter\Weasley women glaring at them and he doubted it was to congratulate them on their admirable escape act.

James turned up a thousand wattage smile, "Hey Mum! Dad! Fancy seeing you here, eh?"

"Don't even try," whispered a petrified Hugo. James gulped, _okay then. _He braced himself for the coming firestorm. Just then he thought he heard Teddy hiss, "Someone's coming!"

He felt something cold on the top of his head, opened his eyes and found- nothing. Literally nothing, not even himself. He was invisible. Wait, correction, he _was _there, just blending into the background perfectly chameleon-like. If he looked closely he could see himself, and around him the outlines of the others.

James brain told him it was a Disillusionment Charm, and seeing whereas Dad and Mum were still visible he guessed they must've cast the spell nonverbally. But for what reason?

He got his answer about twenty seconds later just as his parents were trying to Disillusion themselves. The moment Dad raised his wand to cast the spell it was knocked out of his hand and rattled to the floor."WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !" cackled a voice in the air above them, looking up they found somebody decked out in purple, with a bell covered hat and a very livid looking cat under one arm. _Oh, __Peeves__._

The poltergeist wasn't the only one coming down that hallway though, "PEEVES!" roared the Filch hobbling down the hall.

The poltergeist in question blew a raspberry in response and peered curiously towards where the Order party was, "What do we have here?" he murmured excitedly.

Filch didn't notice though, as he was too busy calling frantically over his shoulder, "Dearest apologies Madam Umbridge! Will be with you a moment, only my cat-"

"That's fine," called a voice coming down the hall, it was sweet and girlish but distinctly apathetic. The owner of the voice came strutting down the hall then, and they could see it was a woman. That was the only characteristic of her appearance that matched her voice, because looking at her James would've expected a croak. Short and squat, at first glance she resembled either a mutant pink toad or a deflating pink balloon. She strutted down the halls like a woman who would soon own them, but slightly put out, as if she couldn't be taking them fast enough.

"Obviously Dumbledore sees himself _above_ the Ministry, if he cannot find the time to meet me now," she said the first part jokingly, like it this was laughably unheard of, "No matter, I shall return at later date to discuss the, ah, Defense Against the Dark Arts post," it was said with a smile, though a visibly fake one. Suddenly her toad eyes fell on his Dad and squinted.

_Wait that description sounds familiar… pink, short, toad like, ill tempered, Umbridge…NO WAY! _James now remembered the name of the nightmare teacher from Neville's story.

It was Dolores Umbridge, and she was standing right in front of him.

* * *

Thirty seven year old Harry had ceased freaking out. Mostly. The guilt that had come crashing down in the earlier hours was not quite disappearing, but being replaced with a need to keep everyone safe. After all, that was what he did best.

Other than blame himself for everything, that is, as the majority of his family 'reminded' him before leaving. So, as they left he was being made fully and completely aware of how much of a noble prat he was. They said it was because they cared so much, which he appreciated (but _why _did they have to be so good with adjectives?) Though they didn't know it, they'd taken the same passageway into the castle as the kids, only taking longer as they'd Apparated as close as possible to the castle before making their ay on foot. Unfortunately 'as close as possible to the castle' wasn't very close at all.

He almost wished a talking Patronus or owl would've worked, but that could be intercepted and they didn't know what exactly they were up against. Besides, the only way anyone could comprehensibly explain this situation would be in person face-to-face, especially to someone like Severus Snape. They'd come through the Honeyduke's passage, much more carefully than the children. Walking through Hogwarts, felt more like wandering through his past than anything else that had happened in the last few hours. Even though it could've been Hogwarts from almost any time period. To go along with that theme he was now staring down a ghost of his past but not the one they were looking for and not one he wished to see. Ironically, this person wasn't _literally _a ghost in his time, like the many other 'ghosts of his past' standing around him.

This particular person was Dolores Umbridge, and Harry wasn't telling a single lie in saying didn't miss her at all.

Give it a couple more months and his teenage self would be feeling a lot less hospitable towards her, and the feeling would be very mutual. For now however, there was only a slight flash of recognition in Present Harry's eyes from his trial and one of snooping and déjà vu in Umbridge's.

She fixed a plastic smile on her flabby face and turned to him with cold thinly veiled suspicion, he knew without that suspicion she wouldn't be speaking to him at all. "_Hem hem,_ Hello, I wasn't aware there was to be anyone _else _here at Hogwarts today! What a…pleasant surprise. Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic."

Future Harry was so glad that his scar had faded and hair swept over his forehead as Umbridge squinted at him trying to place his face. She obviously realized he _looked_ like Harry Potter, but they could only hope she didn't guess why. He glanced over at frowning Future Ginny who was barely holding in her disdain for the Senior Undersecretary. They'd already had the sweet satisfaction of tossing her into Azkaban, (it was almost a shame it was no longer using Dementors) but with the sugary expression on her face he half wanted to it again.

"Harold Parker, my wife Jenny," he said coolly. "I see you're here to see Professor Dumbledore as well. Is he in?"

That did it, Umbridge scowled, a face that Future Harry hadn't seen in years and certainly didn't miss. "No, the _headmaster," _(she said it ith a sneer) "evidently has _other _matters to attend to. Suppose there are things above duty to the Ministry in his eyes," she laughed sweetly. "But why are _you_ here, Mr. Parker? Your business with Albus Dumbledore?" she squinted at him and Future Ginny.

Future Ginny answered while he glanced at the situation over Umbitc-er, Umbridge's shoulder. Peeves was still occupied with a hissing Mrs. Norris and a livid Filch, but already he was showing interest in the invisible people standing by the wall.

"We're visiting," she mockingly matched the sweetness level of Umbridge's voice, "He's an old friend, we've been…abroad for a while."

"Any experience in Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Umbridge squinted. _You could say that, _Future Harry thought. Somebody coughed near the wall in a surprisingly Umbridge fashion, "_Teacher," _they muttered, unfortunately Umbridge heard.

"What was that?" she turned over her shoulder but found nothing but a fuming Filch chasing down a singing Peeves.

"Me," Future Harry coughed, "I was a teacher at Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts," the lie slipped out quickly as he nearly panicked seeing Mrs. Norris thrown mere inches away from where everybody was lying in wait.

"In Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Umbridge raised an eyebrow. Filch took a step forward and Future Ginny winced, a gesture Umbridge apparently mistook as a nod. "I wasn't aware that school offered such courses. Well, I don't suppose he called you here to ask for a job as Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor _here_ at, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry did he?" her face began going the same color as her atrocious pink cardigan. "Because I was under the impression that post was being _graciously _offered to _myself_, I was looking forward to the opportunity to educate eager young minds, according to Ministry values of course. Not that there is anything Dark out there to protect them _from _is there?"

He could sense what she was doing. She was testing him, she must've thought Dumbledore was trying to appoint a DADA teacher behind the Ministry's back, with some delusional plot to take over as a motive. Thus she was questioning him, testing his loyalties. Future Harry was a man of many loyalties, and of the many changes in that line-up over the past twenty years, there was one in particular that hadn't changed a bit. _Dumbledore's man, through and through. _

"Really? Well in my professional opinion, there are quite a few Dark things to defend against, especially in times like these. Like _Voldemort_-"

"-Death Eaters," chimed in Ginny.

"-_Dementors,_" he stared straight into her eyes.

Dolores Umbridge looked affronted, and at the last one, maybe a little scared, "Lies, falsehoods, and fabrications!" she lost her composure for a second and literally trembled with rage before composing herself. "I'm afraid your _professional _opinion simply does not suffice against the knowledge of the entire Ministry of Magic, Mr. Parker, however good you may perceive your teaching abilities to be. There is nothing out there. Speaking of which, now that I think of it I don't recall any defense courses at W.A.D.A and _certainly _not from you Mr. Parker," her mouth was some hybrid of suspicious frown and condescending smirk, all drowned in poison honey.

Future Ginny came to her husband's defense quickly, "I will have you know he is an _excellent_ defense teacher, and perhaps you ought to pay more attention to W.A.D.A. Then again, the Ministry hasn't exactly been the most attentive as of late as it can't see what is _directly in front of it!"_ Funny she should critique this now, as Umbridge's ignorance and unawareness was the only thing keeping them from being caught. There was practical fire in Future Ginny's eyes and the only thing restraining her from physically slapping or hexing her was the knowledge Umbridge would soon get her comeuppance. _Not soon enough _Harry thought grimly of the countless victims of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission.

The couple both looked on in dread as Peeves continued to swoop down, teasing the invisible people, they could not run too far away else Peeves would definitely expose their presence. Even without that Mrs. Norris kept directing her large lamp like eyes towards the group and mewling loudly, Filch looked in the same direction but made no note of it. It was only a matter of time; this had to be wrapped up quickly.

"Look, Umbridge while he'd be loads better at it than you're ever going to be, we're not here to take your job, got that? Now take your ignorance and go skipping back to your Ministry, I'm sure you have some Educational Decrees to pass, some Dark Magic to ignore, and some 'Half-Breed Mudbloods' to unrightfully prosecute. Correct? Now go," Future Ginny said this all in a very sharp tone that made Future Harry quite glad they didn't argue too often. Umbridge's reaction to it was a little less positive.

She couldn't have been more speechless if she had been under a Tongue-Tying Curse, at this point she was quite pinker than her fluffy cardigan, which was slipping from her shoulders. She made several futile attempts to find a passable comeback to this, but whenever she tried to draw herself up once more she was cut off by the combined venomous glares of Future Harry and Ginny (several others glared at her too, but that hostility was sensed rather than actually seen).

Finally, Umbridge gathered the little serenity belonging to her and stepped back in a kind of uncertain indignation. "Mr. Filch, you may escort me out now. I'm afraid I have very important business to attend to at the Ministry, not another second to waste waiting for the Headmaster, _lovely _as your company has been. I will send an owl with a request for a different meeting time, which I am positive you will receive in due time. I'm sure we'll meet again Mr. and Mrs. Parker," Umbridge squinted at them one last time ith plotting in her eyes.

_All too soon, _Harry internally groaned. Reading her face like an open book, he could tell her 'Ministry business' did indeed involve passing educational decrees and ignoring Dark Magic, the persecutions would wait another few years though. Umbridge spun on her heel towards one of Hogwarts's one hundred and forty two staircases.

Unexpectedly, Peeves uncharacteristically released Mrs. Norris into Filch's desperate hands. The action was explained a minute later when he dive bombed after Umbridge at the head of the stairs, snapped his fingers, and apparently triggered it to turn into a sliding ramp. The screaming that followed was so similar to when she'd been (or would be) carried off by the centaurs that Future Harry actually checked around an angry centaur tribe. _Nope, nothing but invisible family members and fussy caretakers. _The fussy caretaker and cat did not stick around very long though, and were next to follow down the ramp/ former himself gave a wink towards the invisible group, then vanished with a jingle of his hat, probably to torment Filch and Umbridge some more.

Lily, still invisible, whistled by the wall, "Impressive set of lungs for his age."

Al turned to his sister surprised, "That was him? I thought it was the cat."

"Oh, it's him," Fred, George, James, Teddy, and Remus all supplied.

A confused Present Ron spoke next, "Can somebody tell me what that was all about? Who exactly was that? And can we _please_ get these bloody charms taken off? This is kind of disorienting"

"Right, er..." a quick wand wave from Ron's future self and everybody was perfectly visible again. "Well _that _was Dolores Umbridge and unfortunately you're going to be seeing a lot of her over the next year." Future Hermione glowered with a surprising amount of venom that fetched her present self's interest.

"She was at my hearing," Present Harry noted musingly.

"Yep," said Future Harry, "and given recent events I might be considering _taking up her discipline principles!"_

The kids all gulped, punishment not forgotten then. Teddy paled again, "Harry, don't even _joke_ about that…. You are joking right?"

Future Harry sighed, "Yes," they visibly relaxed, "but you are _not _off the hook for this! No time to take you back to Grimmauld Place…" he nearly tore his hair out, "Urgh, also James what was that with the teacher thing?! Is it your life's _goal_ to enrage every professor you run into no matter the time stream? And what _did_ you do to Peeves? "

"She deserved it!" surprisingly it was Al defending these actions, "And we um, said stuff to Peeves. Nothing timeline ruining if that's what you're asking! Just that…Umbridge was coming from the Ministry to evict him from the castle and that we had plans to cause mischief for her, it wasn't a complete lie!" he blurted.

"Pretty liar-ish though," muttered Future Ron with a smirk, "I mean, Harry teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts! Ridiculous isn't it?" the Present people just looked on in confusion at the inside joke.

"Be as that may," Future Hermione snapped, "it was still inappropriate behavior considering where we are, and you all shouldn't even be here! Do I even want to know-?"

"Knight Bus."

Future Ron sighed, "Figures. Okay we need to do this quickly in case the old cow comes back. And figure out what to do with all of you," he gestured to the kids taking a deep breath. "I guess we'll have to keep going where we left off and find-"

Suddenly came a soft tutting voice from below the rampified stairs, "What have we here? Simply Peeves, perhaps? _Homenum Revelio." _A breath intake of surprise, "Or perhaps not…"

Scarcely a moment and barely room to think later,_BAM! _In the flesh, with greasy hair framing his stunned and conflicted expression was Severus Snape.

One second, nothing but shock, and the next, "_You!" _

A sigh, "_Me._"

* * *

**A/N Snape, Snape, Severus Snape, what the devil is going on here?**

** OK, I think that's out of my system, and now: GUYS I AM SO SORRY! Over a month...I intend that to never happen again, I can't make promises but I am determined to FINISH this. I'm sorry if that was full of typos, and logic lapses, and just plain terrible. over the holidays I just sort of melted into a puddle that couldn't write. And...yeah.****150 followers, you are all awesome. I'm shocked anyone's still actually reading this. Just...thanks, for sticking with this amateur string of crazy coming from my mind. **

**Now business stuff, when should they find out Fred dies, suggestions? should they at all? I've made James 13 instead of 14...it just felt better. I think I've settled on Lily starting POV next chapter, let me know if there's anyone else you want to see. (apoligies if my Umbridge bit felt unrealistic and immature for Harry/Ginny. I just really hate that woman.) I'm wondering if I've been neglecting Ron/Hermione? Sorry for all these questions, I'm really tired. Feel free to point out any mistakes I probably made in this chapter, and I probably don't deserve it but review?**


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Harry Potter, Fantasy